Last year, the University of the West Indies students protested against an imposed deadline for fee payment. The deadline to pay fees for this academic year was Friday.
Petrina Francis, Education Reporter
THE UNIVERSITY of the West Indies (UWI), which has been offering tertiary level programmes to local, regional and international students since 1948, is not accredited or even registered by the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ).
The UCJ was set up in 1987 to provide accreditation and registration of tertiary institutions, to ensure integrity and quality of the programmes that they offer. But the UWI, whose principal, Professor Kenneth Hall, and two senior lecturers sit on the board of the UCJ, accrediting other tertiary institutions and their programmes, has not bothered to seek accreditation from the body.
Dr. Ethley London, executive director of the UCJ, told The Sunday Gleaner that accreditation is not compulsory, but a majority of tertiary institutions seek official recognition because when they become accredited it increases their marketability and their credibility. She pointed out that institutions that become accredited usually have an increase in enrolment.
"Those without accreditation are struggling because students want to know that they are getting quality for their money," Dr. London told The Sunday Gleaner last week.
But, Joseph Pereira, deputy principal of the university, said that accreditation is a fairly new phenomenon and the UWI was formed before accreditation became widespread.
GOVERNMENT RECOGNITION
He noted that when the university was established it received recognition from the governments of the region, and when accreditation came into being, it was intended for entities outside of the UWI.
Mr. Pereira noted that the fact that the UWI is a regional institution creates some difficulty, as it is unclear how a national credit body would deal with accrediting programmes of the university. He said that the logic would be to create a regional credit body, which would be more cost-effective and better address the needs of the university.
