‘Good ideas’ pitched as nat’l higher education policy takes shape
Published:Thursday | January 26, 2023 | 1:03 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Nearly two years after Cabinet approved the development of a national higher-education policy, work is now being done on its framework, including ways to make it easier for students to fund tertiary-level studies.
In April 2021, Education Minister Fayval Williams said that the policy would be crafted in a bid to increase quality assurance and monitoring of higher-education institutions.
It also aims to provide a framework to streamline the tertiary education sector to work in more cohesively and efficiently and facilitate the achievements of related Vision 2030 targets.
Jamaica currently has three universities, five community colleges, six teachers’ colleges, two polytechnic colleges, and four workforce training institutions.
Speaking at The University of Technology (UTech) Students’ Union’s Future of Education Think Tank at the institution’s Papine, St Andrew, campus on Tuesday, Williams disclosed that she had challenged the team crafting the policy to also mull over the critical issue of financing tertiary education, “not just what we pay for tuition, but also even more in books and supplies”.
“We have put our best minds at the ministry to think about a higher-education policy. They’ve spent lots and lots of time speaking to stakeholders and students as well to just think through: How do we want higher education to be structured in Jamaica? What is it that we want? How do we align higher education with the labour market? What incentives do we give?” Williams said.
“I can’t say right now we have everything buttoned up yet, but they’ve put some good ideas on the table,” she added.
The education minister said that she was looking forward to the positive spin-offs from the implementation of the policy, including its impact on the expected growth in Jamaica’s economy.
“I know that our country and economy cannot grow as fast without having persons with higher education. It’s not to say that the persons without are not successful and productive, but higher education means that they have the the scope to think, think big, think creative, think innovative,” Williams said.
The minister also said she hopes to see more youth enrolling in universities and transitioning more smoothly with the mandatory Sixth Form Pathways Programme for students currently not heading directly into tertiary enrolment after grade 11.
She said that the jump in the number of students enrolled at the sixth-form level this school year will bolster the number of potential students for the tertiary sector to train and certify.
“I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at the numbers recently to see 24,000 students are in [the] Sixth Form Pathways Programme,” Williams said, noting that Pathway One takes students through the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations and then to university while Two and Three are the technical and general pathways, respectively.
“When I looked at the numbers, not only did we have 24,000 students across all three pathways, but the biggest swell in terms of the number of students was in Pathway One, which says there was a demand, but it was at the cost of the traditional sixth-form programme – students who [normally] qualify but didn’t have the resources ... . So we are happy for that,” she said.