Regis and S.J.C.J.C. finalize degree programme

Advances in educational opportunities in Belize have grown by leaps and bounds. And tonight, a new partnership between sister schools should take student options to another level. News Five’s Kendra Griffith reports.

Frank Garbutt, President, S.J.C.
?The need for more talented and skilled individuals certainly grows and grows. And while we have responded in many ways through the University of Belize, continued work with the University of the West Indies and other partners who have offered tertiary education to our citizens. All those current programmes do not in and of itself allow all Belizeans to be able to participate in the way that they may need to, want to, or can afford to.?

Kendra Griffith, Reporting
To fill that void, in October S.J.C. Junior College announced plans to team up with Colorado?s Regis University. The academic union means Belizeans will now have the opportunity to obtain an internationally accredited Bachelor?s degree without having to leave the country. Today the two institutions held a press conference to explain the details of the initiative.

Frank Garbutt
?We are both Jesuit institutions so our core, whether it?s theology of philosophy is much required within our programmes. The rigor and the stressing of quality, all those things made it compatible.?

Fr. Michael Sheeran, President, Regis University
?We will be offering eight majors. Accounting, business, computer information systems, computer networking, computer science, finance, marketing and public administration.?

The programme is geared towards persons that have attended or are attending S.J.C. Junior College.

Frank Garbutt
?Where a student finishes his or her associate degree with the Junior College or through our School of Professional Studies, upon doing that, they then move on to take courses that will then be equivalent to junior or a third year in a four year institution. Having completed that the student can then finish off the remaining courses in the fourth year online.?

Ellen Waterman, Dir., Distance Learning, Regis University
?The curriculum that is in the classroom is the same that is online. What?s different is the teaching strategies and the tools that you use because you?re not sitting in the classroom, but you have other tools that you use. You might have you class split up into work groups and they projects together and then present them online to the other students in the class. They might be requested to go out on the web and look at four or five different Fortune five hundred company websites and try to determine what their marketing strategy is and then come back together and then talk about what you found.?

And while you will pay S.J.C. rates for classes taken on campus, the online Regis courses don?t come cheap. According to Father Michael Sheeran, President of the US University, your bill will total approximately thirty thousand Belize dollars. However, educators say the ability to complete the course in seven years and the programme?s flexibility should take the sting out of the price.

Fr. Michael Sheeran
?They do pay the U.S. rates, but it?s only for one year and it is possible then for them to use their savings to get loans, whatever else, but on a much more modest basis then going to the states would be, much easier on their families as well.?

Frank Garbutt
?The ability to stay home, study home, get a quality degree and to serve in an area that excites them, certainly makes for good development personally as well as nationally.?

Ellen Waterman
?If you work schedule is from twelve midnight until eight in the morning, then you can do you work during the day, but if it?s a regular day you can do it at night. You can interact what we call asynchronously so that it fits your schedule and your time frame.?

And according to the Regis reps, there are safeguards in place to protect against persons who might want to take advantage of the distance learning system.

Fr. Michael Sheeran
?If we suspect someone is cheating, we reserve the right to make that person take their exams or write their essays at a local library of the community or community college where the people are supposed to be living. So you must go in and produce your photo ID and prove that you are the person you say you are before you sit down and take a one or two hour supervised exam.?

Ellen Waterman
?They are cheating themselves; they are the ones who are not getting the information or having the wonderful experience of learning that we?re giving. There will be greater controls put on distance learning in the future, but right now we feel very strongly that our students have a high level of integrity and we don?t see much of it.?

For more information on the Associate?s or Bachelor?s degrees, you can visit the website www.transfertoregis.com.

Kendra Griffith Reporting for News Five.