U.W.I. creates “open campus”

Belizeans now have greater access to tertiary level education without leaving home … thanks to a virtual campus established by the University of the West Indies. This fourth campus joins Mona in Jamaica, Cave Hill in Barbados and St. Augustine in Trinidad in providing a series of degree programmes along with technical and professional certification for new and returning students. At a press briefing held this morning at the School of Continuing Studies in Belize City, principal of the open campus, Hazel Simmons-McDonald and School of Continuing Studies Director Luz Longsworth, introduced the distance learning concept.

Hazel Simmons-McDonald, Principal, U.W.I. Open Campus
“We’re fortunate in a sense because we’re bringing together three existing outreach centers to form the open campus and in that sense it’s not strictly virtual. As you know we have the Schools of Continuing Studies and they exist in several of the countries of the O.E.C.S. and Belize, also in countries with established campuses like Jamaica and Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. Some of these countries have several Schools of Continuing Studies sites. So that particular entity, that outreach sector is being brought into the open campus with tertiary level institutions unit. Through the morphing of these three entities into one administrative and one operational system, U.W.I. has created the mechanism to extend the range and reach of its programmes to people in communities that may not hither to have been served by tertiary level education before so that if people have access to the internet they can access university education programmes through U.W.I. anytime, any place.”

Luz Longsworth, Director, School of Continuing Studies, Mona Campus
“Applications for ‘08-‘09 are already in for the August/September semester. Those are primarily in the areas of education and business administration. So those courses are online. The idea is to allow the students to be very flexible to tailor make in some instance how they want to proceed with their degree because your normal student will go into university and start August and you have to do fifteen credits if your full time minimum. In this case Ann-Marie, you can only do one course for three credits because you are working three jobs for instance, so that will be allowed.”

There’s a rolling application process and students are being accepted three times per year. Applications can be submitted on line at www.dec.uwi.edu.