Wednes­day's grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT)-the first of two such events that UTT held this week-marked an in­ter­est­ing, ex­cit­ing and his­toric de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try's ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion thrust and in the prop­a­ga­tion of the cul­ture of the na­tion.

At Wednes­day's cer­e­mo­ny, UTT grad­u­at­ed its first class in the Mas­ter of Arts de­gree in Car­ni­val Stud­ies, which gives UTT cred­it for be­ing the first uni­ver­si­ty to of­fer the pro­gramme as a dis­crete course of study. It is, of course, en­tire­ly ap­pro­pri­ate that UTT should have de­signed and im­ple­ment­ed a de­gree pro­gramme in Car­ni­val Stud­ies and that among the first grad­u­ates of the class should be some lead­ing prac­ti­tion­ers of var­i­ous as­pects of Car­ni­val.

UTT must be com­mend­ed for its Car­ni­val Arts de­gree pro­gramme which has pro­duced some out­stand­ing grad­u­ates. Such a pro­gramme is long over­due in the coun­try which has giv­en the world three dis­tric­tive art forms-ca­lyp­so, steel­band and mas.

This year's grad­u­ates in­clude TU­CO pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo Masim­ba (Broth­er Re­sis­tance) and vet­er­an Car­ni­val judge and mu­si­col­o­gist Mer­le Al­bi­no-de Coteau who are deeply in­volved in the an­nu­al fes­tiv­i­ties. No doubt the stud­ies they have pur­sued over the past few years in this unique dis­ci­pline will give new strength and pur­pose to what they al­ready do.

Look­ing ahead, there is great po­ten­tial for this new de­gree pro­gramme. Hope­ful­ly the cours­es are be­ing struc­tured to en­able grad­u­ates to take on many of the big chal­lenges of pro­duc­ing the an­nu­al "great­est show on earth". New skills, more en­light­ened ap­proach­es to the many di­men­sions of Car­ni­val and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing of the many agen­cies and in­ter­est groups con­tribut­ing to the fes­ti­val are need­ed.

It is ap­pro­pri­ate that UTT, as the coun­try's first na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty, should have of­fered the course be­cause of the cen­tral­i­ty of Car­ni­val in T&T's cul­ture and life and the im­por­tance that T&T's Car­ni­val has played in the de­vel­op­ment of sim­i­lar fes­ti­vals all over the world.

The Car­ni­val would on­ly be ca­pa­ble of grow­ing and trans­form­ing to new heights if those who par­tic­i­pate in it and man­age var­i­ous as­pects of its de­vel­op­ment are knowl­edge­able about its ori­gins and its im­pact, its lim­i­ta­tions and its pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Giv­en the fact that UTT has gone out of its way to as­so­ciate it­self with in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship, one of the ways in which UTT can dis­tin­guish both the uni­ver­si­ty and the pro­gramme is by ex­plor­ing the busi­ness of Car­ni­val and the ways in which the fes­ti­val can add val­ue, cre­ate sus­tain­able, high-pay­ing jobs in a wide range of ar­eas, gen­er­ate tax rev­enue, earn a stream of for­eign ex­change as well as con­tribute to the coun­try's brand­ing.

It is al­so im­por­tant that UTT be­gin to study the link­ages be­tween var­i­ous as­pects of Car­ni­val-such as whether the coun­try's fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions are pro­vid­ing suit­able pack­ages of fi­nanc­ing-not sim­ply for peo­ple to buy cos­tumes or at­tend all-in­clu­sive fetes-for the man­u­fac­ture of mas.

The UTT should al­so be giv­ing se­ri­ous thought to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of us­ing the Car­ni­val Stud­ies pro­gramme to con­tribute to the es­tab­lish­ment of a Car­ni­val Mu­se­um that would be­come the repos­i­to­ry of the best of all that has gone be­fore in each of the three dis­tric­tive art­forms that makes T&T Car­ni­val so unique-ca­lyp­so, steel­band and mas.

With the right kind of Gov­ern­ment, cor­po­rate and peo­ple sup­port, a Car­ni­val Mu­se­um could have dis­crete spaces ded­i­cat­ed to the doc­u­men­ta­tion, ap­pre­ci­a­tion and study of the evo­lu­tion of ca­lyp­so mu­sic, the mag­nif­i­cence of the gold­en age of Mas and the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of the pan. A mu­se­um fo­cus­ing on Car­ni­val would be­come a tourist at­trac­tion and it would un­der­score the im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion that T&T and its peo­ple have made in the field of cul­ture.