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Higher education and regional transformation.

Address by His Excellency Brigadier David Granger, President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, at the launch of the University of the West Indies South Campus of St. Augustine, Penal-Debe, Trinidad and Tobago, July 31, 2015. Hon. Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Mrs. Kamla Persad-Bissessar;

Hon. Fazal Karim, Minister of Tertiary Education and Training;

Hon. Roodal Moonilal, Minister of Housing and Urban Development;

Sir George Alleyne, Chancellor of the University of the West Indies;

Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies; Professor Clement Sankat, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal, University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus; Members of the Cabinet of Trinidad and Tobago;

Members of the Diplomatic Corps;

Members of the media;

Distinguished invitees;

Ladies and gentlemen;

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I am here because I am a Caribbean man. I am here because I am a proud

alumnus of the University of the West Indies. I am here because I am the

latest of the 18 Caribbean Heads of Government to have graduated from

this great regional institution.

It is a happy honour for me to be part of this ceremonial topping-off and deed

handover of the South Campus of St. Augustine, University of the West

Indies. This will be a magnificent campus when completed. The students

who will eventually graduate from here will have experienced 21st century

conditions that are suited to academic excellence and cultural enjoyment.

The vision for this campus is admirable. I congratulate the University of the

West Indies for moving forward with this initiative. I commend the

government of Trinidad and Tobago for the gift of the land.

I would like to thank the Vice-Chancellor who invited me to address todays

ceremony. We met during the recent 36th Meeting of the Heads of

Government Conference of the Caribbean Community in Barbados. He was

there to deliver a passionate and persuasive plea to the Heads of Government

to re-engineer education to enable the Region to be more competitive in the

modern world. He was particularly forceful in advocating increased

investment in science and technology in order to foster greater

innovativeness.

Professor Hilary Beckles was justly concerned that the Caribbean could be

left behind unless greater emphasis was placed on the teaching of science

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and technology. I applaud his foresight and insightfulness. I agree with his

assessment that we need to embrace a new paradigm in higher education.

Higher education in the Caribbean, to my mind, is at the center of regional

integration and human development. As a start, however, Caribbean states

and peoples must cooperate with each other, not compete with each other,

in order to achieve our common goals. The Caribbean is a unique

community. Our language, our location, our political culture and our

diversity should be seen as assets, not liabilities.

Higher education, in this context, must help the Caribbean people not merely

to survive but to thrive in this place our fore-parents made their home. We

must be able to look beyond our painful past, our differences, the distances

across the sea and even our current condition. We must develop the capacity

to conceptualise a collective future made possible by a transformative

education system.

Higher education, in general, and UWI specifically has three tasks:

First, to help to build an economy that is more resilient than the one

we inherited from the planters and landlords of the old mercantile

system. We have to build one that can compete with the eagles of the

West and the tigers of the East.

Second, to build more cohesive societies in which the people are

educated to suppress their outdated social and class differences and

pretences. Our societies must eliminate inequalities and eradicate

extreme poverty.

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Third, to build a more inclusive political system where, by and large,

people can be empowered to participate fully in local and national

democratic organs and can feel confident in their elected

representatives.

Higher education in the Caribbean, therefore, no longer can be treated as the

preserve of a tiny privileged class or of the ruling elite. It functions best when

inequality is removed, when access is improved and when an increasing

number of persons can be better prepared to be citizens of the 21st century

society.

Change is essential and inevitable. We must reform our higher educational

system to produce graduates who have the knowledge and skills to allow the

Regions industries and businesses to compete globally. We must also be

innovative and focus on long-term value creation, not short-term profit-

making.

The Anglophone Caribbean is a region of small states. This highly-

Balkanized area, with a population of just around five million, however, has

astonished the world by producing three Nobel Laureates. Some larger states

with populations measured in millions are yet to produce a single Nobel

Laureate.

Caribbean men and women have distinguished themselves on the global

stage. We have produced sons and daughters of eminence and excellence

who are to be found in almost all professions in almost every country of the

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world. These persons are products of a culture of struggle which has

traditionally attached great value to education.

Our fore-parents saw education as the vehicle for self-emancipation,

enhanced self-esteem, social equality, economic well-being and political

representation. They made untold sacrifices to ensure that they secured a

better education for their children than they themselves had. The parents of

my generation could never dream of attending university which, today, their

great grandchildren must be able to take for granted.

The vast majority of the Caribbean people were poor, powerless, illiterate

and woefully subordinate at the time of Emancipation and the start of

immigration over a century and three quarters ago. Formal education was

discouraged for most of our people largely labourers for much of our

colonized history. Dr. Slinger Franciso ORTT, taught us of the dumbing

effects of the colonial education system in his Dan is the Man in the Van.

Higher education then was the preserve of the elite. No longer. Education

was and still is the vehicle to achieve the good life. Our people want a good

life. They deserve a good life. We are blessed with sufficient talent and

resources to ensure a good life for all. We need not be poor; we need not be

ignorant; we need not suffer from debilitating lifestyle diseases; we should

not be victims of violent crime.

My administration in Guyana, a six-party coalition, is committed to the

objective of securing a good life for all. This, I believe, can be achieved by

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removing what I refer to as the four horsemen of the Guyana apocalypse:

crime, disease, ignorance and poverty.

Higher education has a pivotal role in unshackling us from these four

horsemen and in opening opportunities to access the good life. Investments

in education therefore are investments in the good life.

Higher education in the Caribbean must be reconfigured to support greater

innovativeness in architecture, agriculture, culture, manufacturing,

medicine, engineering, the sciences and business. Higher education should

contribute to the competitiveness of our enterprises and make the Caribbean

a zone of prosperity.

The University of the West Indies is now leading the way in expanding and

extending higher educational access. U.W.I., through this campus and

through its Open Campus, is enlarging its footprint, expanding

opportunities and extending its influence throughout the Region.

We share the Vice Chancellors ambition and vision. We can bring all these

elements together under a regional project to develop a world-class

institution in the provision of higher educational services.

This campus is a good augury for social and scientific education in the

Caribbean. This campus, in my eyes, will provide greater access for a greater

number of our people. UWI is leading the charge to change our economy and

society. UWI is moving us closer towards the goal of a good life for everyone.

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May God bless this University.

I thank you.