Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Training Fazal Karim has estimated the cost of the Esmond Ramesar Open Campus Centre in Chaguanas at $561 million. Construction is under way on ten acres of land close to the Divali Nagar site and the first phase is carded to be completed in May.
Karim was speaking at the UWI Open Campus Country Sites TT (UWI OCCSTT) annual awards and recognition ceremony on Friday at the UWI Teaching & Learning Complex, St Augustine. A total of 859 students—658 female and 211 male—graduated.
Karim said the open campus, which began as UWI’s Extra-Mural department in 1947/48, had always sought to reinvent the way distance, professional and continuing education were offered to underserved communities across T&T. Over the years, it has evolved and now has 19 satellite centres nationwide, St Augustine being the headquarters until the Ramesar Centre in Chaguanas is established.
Karim told the gathering t the new centre would be the largest of any facility owned and run by UWI. Some of the features of its first phase are the Academic Programming and Delivery Division (APAD) Centre, Computer and Technology Services (CATS) Centre, Registry, Finance Department, country site administration offices, HR Department and classrooms. The state-of-the- art building will occupy 150,000 square feet.
Karim told the management to ensure all the satellite centres were equipped and certified as workforce assessment centres. He also said the institution, when publishing photographs of the graduates, should state their areas of accomplishments, along with the number of graduates in each. “In this way, employers will be made aware of the type of graduates coming out of our tertiary learning institutions,” he explained.
He also recommended that graduations should be the commencement of employment opportunities tagged to the graduation. “Bring the employers here,” he urged.