The University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus marked the launch of three brand-new degree programmes with a region-wide media event, where one could “meet” with course facilitators across the Caribbean.

The UWI has a presence throughout the Caribbean, in the form of both regular college campuses, but also smaller centres, such as the one in Olympic Way, George Town. From there students have access to many UWI different degrees via the centre’s distance learning facilities. These facilities were demonstrated to good effect during the event, as local centres were able to chat with each other via a state-of-the-art internet hook-up.

Head of Cayman’s Open Campus, Robert Geofroy said: “We are having a regional media-launch for three new programmes that are being introduced; two in September and one in January. The two in September are the BSc in Early Childhood Development and Family Studies, and the BSc in Youth Development Work. Then in January there’s also a M.A Degree in English. Students can do all three courses from this campus here.”

Mr. Geofroy believes that one of the biggest advantages about taking a bachelor’s or master’s degree through the Open Campus is cost, which can work out to less than a third of the cost of other locally offered degree alternatives:

“The new bachelor degree programmes are the same cost as the others, that is, 300 US dollars per course, and 30 courses in total – that comes up to US 9000 dollars.

“The Master of Arts in English is 5000 US dollars in total, so that comes up to about 4000 Cayman Dollars for a complete programme – from beginning to end,” he says.

The other advantage Mr. Geofroy wanted to point out is the flexibility of study – the UWI Open Campus is geared more towards busy adults who just don’t have time, (either because of work, home commitments, or both) to attend college full time. Many different options are open to them for study. Students enjoy coming to the Open Campus to hear a lecture delivered from an expert situated in one of the UWI’s main campus sites, but they also pursue their degrees through online resources in the comfort of their
own homes.

This flexible, student-need-centred approach has been the hallmark of the UWI’s offerings over several decades and enabled them to make internationally accredited degrees available to even very small numbers of students at each location. For more details contact: 946-8322 or 949-2275

Photos by Christopher Tobutt