WHILE the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus has witnessed a fall-off in its student population since the introduction of tuition fees, at least one faculty is reporting an increase, albeit slight, in its student intake.
During the opening ceremony of the 19th annual “Islands-In- Between” at the 3WS Oval yesterday, Head of the Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature Dr. Ian Craig said: “We bring modestly glad tidings from a Department whose disciplinary coverage strongly coincides with the thematic scope of this event – namely that for the first time in three years, numbers in our Department overall are slightly up on the previous year.
“We fervently hope that this augurs a change of fortunes for the Humanities in general, which as is well known, have sometimes begun to feel like an increasingly embattled small island amidst an unforgiving sea of neo-liberal utilitarianism, a rather quaint and old-fashioned little place with an ageing population and a brain drain problem,” he mused.
He also pointed out that the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies continues to be the one that attracts most nationals of other Eastern Caribbean territories to study within its walls, a figure currently standing at some 515 OECS students, or 9. 4 per cent of the total student population.
During his remarks, Dr. Craig also identified with comments made by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, that “Any time an education system gets to the point where all it prepares people for is to work, then something is fundamentally wrong in the society and the society is going to pay a very, very high price for it...”
“The Prime Minister’s enlightened remarks reflect a happy circumstance of life in small-island states, namely its possibility, at least, of generating a liberating sense of distance from the massive gravitational pull of giant capital and the consumerist servitude it engenders: this kind of elusive in-betweenness of alternative spaces may not be an outright pre-condition of staying more fully human, but it certainly seems to help.”
Dr. Craig used the opportunity to thank the local organising committee of the conference headed by Dr. Janice Jules and her team. He also thanked all the invited speakers and delegates in attendance.
“When I look at the extraordinarily rich programme of presentations on marronage, national identity, cultural practices, language politics, literature, natural disaster response, and so many other aspects of our island cultures, in Spanish, French and English with Creoles pushing through them, by presenters from throughout the region and beyond, it strikes me that the late Norman Girvan would have heartily approved,” he said. (JH)
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