Claudia Gardner, Gleaner Writer

SHIRLEY

WESTERN BUREAU:

The University of the West Indies (UWI) will commence operation of its fourth campus, from a temporary site at the Chatwick Centre in Montego Bay, come the 2008 academic year, says principal of the institution, Professor Gordon Shirley.

Professor Shirley made his comments during a meeting with key stakeholders from across western Jamaica recently. He said the UWI saw the need to expand its academic programmes to western Jamaica due to the large number of developments taking place in the northern end of the island.

The proposed permanent campus facility is to be sited on 25 acres of land at Irwin, St. James. The university has three other campuses in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and in Kingston.

"We will be offering full, three-year degree programmes, and will be expanding in the second and third years," Professor Shirley told The Gleaner in a subsequent interview. "I suspect the flow of persons and skills is going to reverse (from Kingston) to western Jamaica, because you have the potential for a large number of jobs to be generated here. What we want to be to able do is ensure that we have an educational facility capable of offering training to the highest levels, as close as possible to the areas where those jobs are going to be created."

Professor Shirley added: "We have a larger population in the western end of Jamaica than we have in all of the eastern Caribbean, including Barbados, which has a big university of its own, and we think it's time that we had a presence here, and that we offer programmes that are particularly targeted at the needs of the community and the businesses here in western Jamaica."

'Long overdue'

President of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce, Pauline Reid, in responding to the announcement, said she was feeling elated as the campus was "long overdue".

"It is something that western Jamaica has been waiting for, for a very long time. I am particularly pleased that UWI is now coming on board. I think it is something that will benefit and enhance the Montego Bay community, as we have been losing out tremendously when our bright young minds have to leave here to go to Kingston to further their education and, very often, do not return," Ms. Reid said. President of the St. James Parish Development Committee, Mark Kerr-Jarrett, told The Gleaner that the campus was "an essential step in national development".

"I think it is needed, especially given the developments taking place in western Jamaica, because we can only develop as far as our people are educated," Mr. Kerr Jarrett said.