Bahamian Prime Minister wants regional universities to establish regional education network
MANDEVILLE, Jamaica – Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie, has called on universities across the Caribbean to establish a regional co-operative education network, which would see university students traveling to different islands to complete aspects of a single degree program.
This would mean that universities would develop signature programs unique to their institutions, to which students from other islands would come to complete their degree requirements.
The Bahamian Prime Minister issued the call as he delivered the Commencement Address at the Northern Caribbean University’s graduation ceremony held at the institution last Sunday, August 13, 2006.
Bahamas Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie
Bringing the commencement address during the graduation exercises at Northern Caribbean
University, Mandeville, Jamaica, on August 13, 2006. (BIS photo: Peter Ramsay)
“I believe firmly that the way ahead lies in creating signature programs at each institution, which draw on the strength and uniqueness that each territory possesses. Depending on our resource base, some of us may be best positioned to develop strong tourism and hospitality, marine science, agriculture, heavy industry programs and the like. Why can we not begin to think of sending students to benefit from these areas of strength for at least part of their program?”
He called on the heads of institutions to begin talks “on how we can establish co-operative ventures in programming, research, conferences, exchange of faculty and students…” The Bahamian Prime Minister called on the people of the region to “show the world how to make capital from the celebration of commonalities, the promotion of brotherhood, rather than highlighting differences … individually we have only some of the answers, together, we will possess that much more.”
“Whether we are conscious of it or not, the people of our region possess some of the best brains and the greatest fortitude known to man. You have only to reflect on our performance in various fields. If we based our assessment of supremacy on a population size to achievement ratio, the Caribbean would emerge as a real powerhouse”.
Pointing to the resilience of the Caribbean people, despite the atrocities of economic plunder, Prime Minister Christie said many nations did not expect the Caribbean people to survive without overseas governance. “They said we couldn’t govern ourselves or support stable governments-but we have. They said we could not build stable economies. Yet despite the best efforts of the metropolitan lands to disrupt or at the very least subjugate, we persist with our dignity in tact.”
The Bahamian Prime Minister called on Caribbean nationals to hold fast to their Caribbean identity. “We must cling to the traditions of our foreparents who passed on the values and history of our tribes through story and song. We must continue to tell our stories in an intimate way, but at the same time expand the number of communication vehicles, so that our histories and values will be strengthened and live on,” he said.
He praised the Northern Caribbean University, for offering a brand of education that has trained numerous leaders for his country. He praised the institution for its stance on christian education and he praised the Seventh-day Adventist Church, for the outstanding leaders it had created, many of whom also served the church and state in his country.
Urging the NCU graduates to do all they can to stem the tide of ethnic and religious conflict threatening the world, he said all that would only begin with true education. “Education does not, in false pride, allow modernity to crush and discard worthy tradition. I’m talking education that leaves the Creator in the story of creation…True education, such as is offered at NCU which feeds the whole person, is education that speaks to the dignity of humankind.”
