Nettleford ... concerned about the gender disparity at the UWI. - File

BRIDGETOWN (CMC):

Caribbean scholar Professor Rex Nettleford is lamenting the continuing great disparity between males and females entering tertiary institutions throughout the region.

Speaking here at the opening of the symposium in honour of National Hero Sir Frank Walcott, Professor Nettleford said in most cases the ratio of female to male students was as high as three to one, a reversal of the situation when the three University of the West Indies (UWI) campuses were set up in the Caribbean.

He noted that in the case of the Mona campus - the largest of the three UWI campuses - only 18 per cent of new students entering for the 2007/08 academic year were male.

Nettleford, a former vice chancellor of the UWI, said this situation would have alarmed the late National Hero who constantly campaigned for racial, class and gender equality within the education system.

The academic said while Sir Frank also recognised the im-portance of areas of study such as the sciences, he was also interested in seeing a focus on humanities and other disciplines.

"Although Frank Walcott was seized of the importance of science and technology in the preparation of the new generation West Indian, in the challenges to cope with modern life, he would not ever give into the notion that the humane disciples be left out of the preparation of the educated West Indian," Nettleford said.

He argued that the UWI was making a valuable contribution to the shaping of the Caribbean labour climate through the teaching of disciplines such as industrial psychology, sociology, economics and legislation.