REPORT #139 Nov 1999
FINALLY! SANITY COMES TO CARIBBEAN EDUCATION


Produced by the Belize Development Trust

For years and decades British Caribbean Commonwealth educators have buried the citizens of different Caribbean countries under a plethora of exams and entrance requirements to get an education. Formal academia has been ruled by a tight fisted set of rules of academics throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, geared to colonialism and the standards of overpopulated Europe. The educational standards were geared to keep people out of education, or streamline them and create CLASS divisions in their societies.

The Caribbean Technical Institute of Montego Bay, Jamaica has finally cracked that nonsense, borrowed educational system from Europeans, with an American financed new technology institute. This College is an industrial college and wants graduates. The College at present has graduated it's first year students, some 56 of them from all walks of life and varied, or limited educational backgrounds. There is no entrance exam like other schools throughout the Caribbean, or in Jamaica, or Belize. Being an industrial college, you pay for your tuition. All comers are welcome. The college graduates are geared for an excess of jobs in a field that has a skilled professional shortage. There is however, one catch! There is an EXIT exam. All students have to take an EXIT exam. Those that pass are guaranteed jobs and companies are lined up waiting for the graduates to hire them.

This Caribbean Technical College produces software programmers. But the same methodology could be applied to a College that produces plumbers, electricians, air conditioning repairmen and so forth. If you wanted to start an Aeronautical Mechanics two year college in Belize, you could do it the same way. No entrance exam required. What is required are motivation and the money to pay for the tuition and books. What would be required to graduate is to take an annual FAA ( Federal Aviation Authority-USA) exam and pass it. That would be your graduation and working certificate.

Education in my generation and era was denied to millions of people, because they lacked the prerequisites, or were too old and it was impractical to repeat high school, college to get a University degree. No allowance was made for motivation, life's experiences, maturity, or the desire to catch up on your own time on remedial subjects that might be lacking. Finally, a little sanity comes into English speaking Caribbean countries with this new system by Caribbean Technological Institute, of Montego Bay, Jamaica. You don't have an entrance exam, or have to be a graduate of a High School, or College. But to graduate you do have to have an EXIT exam. That makes sense! A breath of fresh air finally in Caribbean education. I hope Belizean Educators are reading this and listening.

Reference: http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg112.htm

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