Editorial | Overhauling University of Technology

Lloyd Carney is accustomed to working by plans laden with timelines and Gantt charts. He very much reminded the audience of this at his installation as chancellor of the University of Technology (UTech) in February.

Having a plan, of course, doesn’t mean inflexibility. It just requires the ability to adapt to changed circumstances. But “without a plan”, Mr Carney told his guests, “any path will take you there”.

Not following any old path has taken Lloyd Carney not only to success as a technology entrepreneur. He is also a respected figure in Silicon Valley, who sits on the boards of some of America’s most influential companies.

That is why this newspaper looks forward to his plans for transforming UTech – taking it back to core as a polytechnic university – and his timelines for doing so.

If this is Mr Carney’s intention, he should insist on the government’s public backing of his proposed direction, stamped with the imprimatur of the prime minister. He should also lock in early support, financial and otherwise, from the private sector.

Additionally, Mr Carney should prepare for friction and inertia from vested interests at UTech and be ready to give the widest legal interpretation to the powers of the chancellor. In other words, UTech’s chancellorship, in this period, shouldn’t be a ceremonial position but an activist’s job.

We sense that Mr Carney gets it. Referencing his philanthropic endeavours, he said he always wanted to do “more than writing cheques”, or delivering his guest lectures at Stanford University.

“If you think about the opportunity here, this is beyond my wildest dreams; instead of 90 students I have 12,000 students that I can positively influence and mentor,” he said.

SUSTAINABLE FOUNDATION

This charge to Mr Carney, however, is part of a broader move to set down a sustainable foundation for Jamaica to compete in a global economy increasingly driven by technology. And while the macroeconomic stability Jamaica has achieved over the last dozen years is important, it is not a sufficient condition to ensure growth and sustained development.

An interlocking, multi-sectoral industrial/development policy is critical to this strategy. Education and training, with a strong bias to STEM, as well as research and innovation, must sit at the centre of this process.

This is why this newspaper continues to be chagrined that more than 18 months after its delivery, the Orlando Patterson report on transforming Jamaica’s education system hasn’t been broadly debated and analysed, even though a committee was established to oversee its implementation. What is being implemented isn’t clear, and even less so is the implementation budget.

It is widely known, though, that the island’s education outcomes are poor. Over half of students leave primary school unable to read, incapable of extracting information from simple English sentences. Only 28 per cent of students who write the Caribbean Secondary Education Schools Certificate (CSEC) pass five subjects, including maths and English, at a single sitting. Less than 40 per cent pass maths.

Additionally, fewer than two of 10 the relevent cohort are enrolled in tertiary education, and fewer still sign-up for science or technology courses. The island is short of technical skills. Seven in 10 Jamaicans aren’t trained for their jobs.

These aren’t statistics conducive to a modern, efficient and competitive economy. Yet, the few platforms from which the build-out of high-level technical skills can take place have been squandering their advantage. UTech is the prime example.

Its predecessor, the College of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST) had the reputation as the English-speaking Caribbean’s most accomplished polytechnic. Now, of the 12,000-plus students enrolled at UTech, nearly four in 10 (38 per cent) are enrolled in business and management courses. Three per cent are in the humanities and social sciences, including law. Put another way, less than 60 per cent of UTech’s students study science and technology.

Among the suspected causes for this was the management’s view that the university couldn’t survive on the government’s J$12 billion subvention. The non-tech courses were the easiest route to an extra buck in tuition fees.

DISMANTLING NEWISH FACULTIES

Re-establishing UTech as an elite polytechnic will require dismantling some of the newish faculties. Mr Carney will have to entice endowments to support more expensive programmes.

Will he have the space to be transformative?

Depending on the elasticity you allow the statutes, the real power at UTech rests with the president and the pro-vice chancellor, who get to chair most of the operational meetings, including of the critical University Council and the academic board.

Two things, however, now work in Mr Carney’s favour.

First, the pro-vice chancellor’s post is vacant; secondly, the president has been acting for three years, suggesting there is no intention to appoint that person permanently. Mr Carney, therefore, is in a position to engineer the appointment of a president with the appropriate skills, who shares his vision.

Further, while UTech’s statutes obligate the chancellor to chair only one meeting of the council annually, it doesn’t limit the number at which he can preside. Moreover, the statutes, even as they appear to disperse authority to various offices, declare the chancellor the “head of the university”.

So, Mr Carney can convene as many meetings of the council as he wishes, and re-engineer the body as the key instrument of policy, strategy and tactics. He can have it amend the statutes to rebalance the centres of power.

Further, the appointment of a president of shared vision now would allow Mr Carney to spend his seven-year tenure overseeing the reshaping of UTech.