CARIBBEAN EDUCATIONAL institutions seeking to advance the quality of their operations will face many challenges, not the least of which is finding funding and personnel to do the job.
But that challenge is global, said Richard Lewis, president of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE).
"The challenge for CANQATE (Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education) is what we all face," Lewis said. "It is that we get increasing demands for higher education and we don't tend to have enough money to do so ... and that's a challenge across the world. There is also the challenge in terms of seeking qualified teachers to teach and research and to deal with quality assurance."
Lewis was the main speaker on day two of the three-day inaugural CANQATE conference which started last week at Breezes Runaway Bay in St Ann. More than 150 education professionals, policy makers from 13 countries participated in the conference hosted by the University Council of Jamaica, to mark quality assurance in Tertiary Education Week.
CANQATE was launched at the conference as a professional body that is a sub-network of INQAAHE.
According to UCJ's Executive Director, Dr Ethley London, CANQATE, at the regional level, will set up a framework for communication and for academic, professional and collegial support in quality assurance.
Mr. Lewis, in his address, said that in the last 13 years, external quality assurance in higher education had become accepted in virtually all the world.
LABOUR COMPETITION
The second change came with the establishment of quality assurance agencies in about 60 countries and the growth of networks of such agencies in regional pockets throughout the world.
Education Minister, Maxine Henry Wilson, whose remarks were read at the conference, referred to the impending World Trade Organisation agreement and its likely impact on local and regional educational institutions when it is implemented next year.
She said a meeting of education ministers and other professionals in Guyana a week ago raised concerns about the preservation of local institutions and sought to determine what the role of governments should be in providing financial support as well as regulatory protection.
"Historically, there has been the problem of the migration of professionals largely to developed countries, she noted. Today, many students in the Caribbean are attracted to foreign institutions as these provide not only US-accredited certification but also the opportunity to penetrate the US market. With the advent of free movement of skills, therefore, such migration would not only be to developed countries but there will be increasing competition in the labour market from nationals from outside the region," said Mrs. Henry-Wilson.
