GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

For­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona is call­ing for in­ter­cam­pus col­lab­o­ra­tion among the var­i­ous en­ti­ties of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

“In oth­er words, a stu­dent from Trinidad should be able to com­plete a se­mes­ter at Cave Hill or Mona (cam­pus­es) and vice ver­sa and this should be fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the im­ple­men­ta­tion of gen­uine and re­al sub­sidised air­fare and ac­com­mo­da­tion rates,” Car­mona ex­plained.

He made the com­ments while de­liv­er­ing re­marks at the awards cer­e­mo­ny of the UWI Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion (UWIAA) on Sat­ur­day night.

As he out­lined his con­cerns, Car­mona said the “va­garies of the in­ter­nal­i­sa­tion of the ed­u­ca­tion struc­tures and the creep­ing parochial in­su­la­tion of the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem” in the Caribbean are knock­ing at UWI doors.

“It ap­pears, un­like what went be­fore, that every is­land in the Caribbean wants its own uni­ver­si­ty, its own en­gi­neer­ing fac­ul­ty, its own law fac­ul­ty, its own fac­ul­ty of med­i­cine. As much as it pos­si­bly re­sults in eas­i­er ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion, it is rup­tur­ing the Cari­com spir­it and the sense of Caribbeaness from which my gen­er­a­tion ben­e­fit­ed,” Car­mona fur­ther ex­plained.

He main­tained that if that “Caribbeaness” is to be main­tained, then com­pul­so­ry mod­ules ought to be of­fered at the var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer pres­i­dent, as an in­sti­tu­tion in­volved in ped­a­gog­ic train­ing, UWI must seek, at all times, to pro­duce ser­vice-ori­ent­ed lead­ers rather than pow­er-dri­ven lead­ers.

He went on to add that ser­vice lead­er­ship de­mands the es­tab­lish­ment and con­tin­u­ance of a “leader’s con­nec­tiv­i­ty” to the peo­ple at all times.

“In the ag­gres­sive search for po­lit­i­cal dom­i­nance, prag­ma­tism sways the leader to be­come re­cal­ci­trant to so­cial pro­grammes and amenable to the nar­row range of in­ter­ests, all to the detri­ment of the com­mon good,” Car­mona added.

He em­pha­sised that ser­vice lead­er­ship is about the “com­mon good, about the ex­al­ta­tion of the com­mon good,” the re­al­i­sa­tion of so­cial and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits that re­ver­ber­ate to all stra­ta of so­ci­ety, which al­so in­stils a sense of hope, as well as pro­vid­ing a mech­a­nism for a hap­pi­er and a bet­ter so­ci­ety.