Thu | Mar 28, 2024

UWI’s big test: Creating higher-level economies

Published:Monday | April 29, 2019 | 12:10 AMRomario Scott/Gleaner Writer
Sir Hilary Beckles
Sir Hilary Beckles

The leadership of The University of the West Indies (UWI) has admitted that the number one challenge facing the regional institution is to find solutions to stimulate Caribbean economies as they continue to struggle even with the help of global agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to Vice-Chancellor of The UWI Sir Hilary Beckles, the regional university has to focus on what the Caribbean should look like in two decades even as it continues to reel from depressed economic growth.

“The issue of the economies of this region – most of them either in IMF programmes, or under IMF surveillance, or exiting plans – is important to us,” Beckles said.

“The fact that the IMF is such a powerful body and plays such a pivotal role in the allocation of economic resources in the Caribbean has to do with the fact that we have not achieved the kinds of growth that we expect, and we find ourselves as small economies exposed to global movements, and some of those have been very damaging,” Beckles said as he delivered a report to high-ranking university officials in the Turks and Caicos Islands last week.

“I would say that this is the number one challenge facing the Caribbean, and, therefore, the university right now – getting our economies up to a higher level of competitiveness and performance.”

NUMBER-ONE PRIORITY

Beckles subsequently declared that economic growth is the number-one priority for his university right now.

Later at the UWI General Council meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, Chancellor Robert Bermudez expressed similar concerns.

However, he took issue with the number of graduates from the regional institution that are showing up in unemployment numbers across the region.

“I am concerned about the unemployment among UWI graduates. Let us adjust to reflect the times we live in. Let us ensure graduates leave with skills necessary for the world they live in,” Bermudez said during the public session of the UWI council meeting in Trinidad and Tobago.

Sir Hilary warned that if the Caribbean fails to achieve sustainable economic growth in the next 10 years, many of the social and cultural benefits that have thrived will be eroded.

“The erosion will also be felt within our university. So, therefore, we are primarily first and foremost committed to this business of economic transformation, economic growth in association with social transformation,” he said.

In January, former prime minister Bruce Golding, who is also a UWI fellow, said he was puzzled as to how recent university graduates managed to stay afloat financially given what he described as the mind-blowingly low wages they are pocketing each month.

He said that a tracer study done by The UWI found that some graduates are earning less than $50,000 per month, which he argued could not sustain their living.

romario.scott@gleanerjm.com