The OECS/EDF/UWI TLIU Tertiary Education Project: The Associate Degree Component

Over the years, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has been focusing on improving access to tertiary education through articulation of its programmes with those of the other tertiary Institutions. However, the efficiency of this process has been somewhat affected by the diversity of the offerings and involvement of the UWI in the development process.

With funding from the European Union, the OECS Tertiary Education Project requested the TLI Unit to assist the OECS colleges in (i) determination of a framework for Associate Degrees; (ii) identification of general education courses, and (iii) preparation of draft model course outlines and evaluation plans.

Other countries in the region indicated an interest in participating in the validation and acceptance of these course outlines for regional use and their assessment by UWI for course exemptions.

The purpose of the undertaking was to foster collaboration in programme development among tertiary institutions in the region and to facilitate articulation between the University of the West Indies (UWI) and other tertiary institutions.

Specifically, it was to:

1. collaboratively validate for the region, model course outlines for six (6) General Education courses in Communications, Caribbean Studies, Information Technology, Introductory French, Introductory Spanish and Mathematics and Statistics;
2. conduct UWI assessment of the courses to determine their equivalence with identified Foundation/Introductory or Beginners courses.

Teaching staff and administrators from various tertiary level institutions (TLIs), lecturers of the UWI’s three campuses and representatives of ACTI (Association of Caribbean Tertiary Institutions) and the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) were convened to examine, evaluate and determine if the proposed General Education courses were appropriate in content and level as well as equivalent to courses currently offered by the UWI.

Colleges can now use the guidelines and procedures developed by TLIs for the development and assessment of Associate Degree programmes.

The General Education Course Outlines

The following eight General Education course outlines were developed for regional TLIs:

• English and Communication I (COM 100)
• English and Communication II (COM 101)
• Information Technology (IT 101)
• Caribbean Studies (CS 101)*
• Mathematics (MTH 001)*
• Introductory Statistics (MTH 002)
• Introductory French (FRE 001), and
• Introductory Spanish (SPA 001).

* undergoing further revision

The course outlines include assessment plans and suggested reading materials and in each case, model examinations and model answers are appended. The package of course materials reflect the collaborative effort and collective wisdom of disciplinary experts who are experienced practitioners in colleges and universities in the CARICOM region. The outlines embody therefore current and acceptable standards for college level general education courses and indicate best practice, the priority skills and a relevant range of content for such courses.

These course outlines are coded to indicate the depth of treatment of the subject matter and the level of operations which is expected of the learners.

The first four courses were intentionally pitched at an introductory and not remedial level. The latter four were designed as access courses since Mathematics, Modern Languages and Sciences are not compulsory for entry to many colleges and as such, it had to be assumed that many students would be beginners in the true sense and that time would not allow for the achievement of a large number of higher order objectives within that single course. These four courses are expected to supplement the secondary education base and are pitched at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Level.

Whereas the idea of these courses originated with the OECS colleges, the development and endorsement of the courses include the efforts of representatives from universities and colleges from the entire CARICOM region. The course outlines are therefore collectively owned by the tertiary education institutions in the region and may be freely adopted or adapted for use in their individual programmes.

The eight courses provide a range of introductory courses for college use. It is worth noting that the University of the West Indies was involved in the development, review and assessment of these courses and is in the final stages of recognition of four of these courses as having equivalence to its own courses as follows:

It is the expectation therefore that once formal approval is finalized, any student who creditably completes any of these courses in a TLI as a part of a UWI approved certificate, diploma or degree programme will be able to earn exemptions with credit from the equivalent course at UWI. The remaining 3 courses (Introductory Statistics, French and Spanish) will not earn exemptions from UWI courses but are important in that they can be used as access courses to meet entry requirements to other college courses or programmes by students who did not earn the relevant CSEC or equivalent qualification.

Although the production of a set of model general education courses for regional TLIs is itself a laudable achievement, perhaps the more important feature of this exercise is the emergence of a process which has been identified and tested and which has proven to be an effective model for the harmonisation of courses, using agreed standards. The next logical step should be application of this process to the development of the other courses in the major areas and in the elective components of other TLI qualifications