CAMPUS HIGH

After just five years in operation, the University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus has achieved an enrolment that has eclipsed the three traditional UWI campuses.
In fact, university sources said that with numbers topping the 24 000 mark, the Open Campus, buoyed by the latest in information and communications technology, was catering to almost three times as many students as Cave Hill, where it is administratively headquartered, and well over the approximately 15 000 each at St Augustine in Trinidad and Mona in Jamaica.
The success story of the Open Campus, which is designed to deliver courses to students across the region on their home soil in a cost-effective manner, with technical online support being available around the clock, was outlined to dozens of department heads at the Cave Hill campus last Friday, the source explained.
Its programmes and schedules are designed to attract mature students and allow them to continue in full-time employment while studying, and delivers from continuing and professional education in short courses up to master’s level teaching. Successful students obtain certificates in tourism hospitality management and diplomas in public sector administration, almost two dozen bachelor’s degree qualifications and up to half-dozen postgraduate qualifications.