Now more than ever, as the need for sustainable diversification becomes urgently critical, the country needs its universities to rise to the challenge and become active in fostering, facilitating and fuelling job creation, improving productivity and competitiveness through their R&D and outreach effort.
The surfeit of graduates has led to them being used as OJTs. There thus exists a clear and present golden opportunity to populate the country's R&D effort by integrating them into the research labs and clusters at UWI, UTT and other research institutions and departments, to develop new products and to provide support services to industry and the state. There has always been a scarcity of students wanting to do research once jobs are available in industry. The norm over the years has been to see a marked increase in applications for postgraduate and research positions during times of economic slowdown. The problem is that the number of graduate teaching assistant posts were limited.
The present situation of an increase in the number of graduates, due to the Gate programme, and the tightness of the job market has resulted in a significantly large pool of people, including returning scholars, who are unemployed or underemployed. This cohort should be put to the task of driving the diversification effort and improving the effectiveness of the both the private public sectors though the OJT programme. For this to happen, however, the programme must be structured. It should not be viewed as a make believe work programme with the main intent being to provide an employment stipend. The research of both UWI and UTT has not had the required and sustained impact on the national and development process. Of late, UWI has been making a concerted effort to become more meaningful and that is to be complimented. UTT on the other hand, from an impressive start has been sliding, not forwards, particularly in the technical areas and research over the past few years. The leadership at universities, at the departmental and senior levels, is critical to their proper functioning. In the case of UWI, the Principal is the CEO for both the academic and support services. He/she also chairs the Academic Council. In the case of UTT, the roles are separated and the Academic Council is chaired by a Provost, who is the CAO or Chief Academic Officer. It naturally stands to reason that provosts, in particular, and principals, in general, are expected to be chosen from the ranks of people who would have had a good track record of research (preferably relevant), publications and postgraduate supervision; supplemented with adequate academic administration. The principals of UWI generally tend to be seasoned and experienced academics. Further, its well-established departments, faculties and academic governance procedures mean that, with minimal additional funding and a good supply of OJTs, UWI should be in a good position to really give the R&D enterprise a good acceleration. With the proviso that it can move swiftly to dispense with its inward-looking ethos. In any diversification effort, the Faculty of Engineering, in particular, must play a central role. In this regard, the institutionalising of the linkage with industry, which already exists must be further strengthened.
UTT, in early years, had done this in an admirable manner. In the Master's programme in Industrial Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management (IIEM), students spend three out of every five-week module in industry, working on a real world problems. Over 100 companies and firms, in the manufacturing and public sector, participated in this programme with outstanding results. This was a full-time programme and the students were paid a stipend, similar to that paid to those in the OJT programme. This programme was terminated suddenly.
This was but one example of the inept and dismal academic leadership that has caused the downward spiral of the institution.
n To be continued