BVI increases school ties with the University of West Indies

The University of the West Indies (the UWI) is planning to expand collaboration with the school of continuing studies in the British Virgin Islands.

Nigel Harris, Vice Chancellor, MPhil, MD, DM and Lawrence Carrington, Pro Vice Chancellor, were the members of a delegation consulting with local people and private officials in March. The officials of the University of the West Indies were making visits to all the contributing UWI member countries in order to assess both their human resource and their training needs.

The Minister for Education Lloyd Black suggested that it is essentially to look at how it is possible to make the University of the West Indies the school of choice for BVIslanders.
Not so long ago the tertiary level unit of the UWI made a survey that was completed by among not only students, but also employers and educators. As Lloyd Black said, the results determined the need to focus on the training people in the following fields – education, medicine and health, communication, information technology, technical and vocational fields.

Nigel Harris stated that "The first step is to define those human resource needs, and the methodology is really to go to the student population, employers and the providers of education to give their input as to what is important". Harris emphasized 8 or 9 major disciplines, which include maritime studies and banking and financial services. So, the University of the West can be a good for such an offshore country as the BVI.