UWI Cave Hill and OECS sign MOU
19 October 2021
The document was signed virtually by Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, the Most Honourable Eudine Barriteau in Bridgetown and Director General of the OECS, Dr Didacus Jules in Castries.
Professor Barriteau said the MOU will focus on areas of technical support, collaborative research, joint teaching, workshops seminars and summer institutes, combined public outreach, and collective strategies to promote Caribbean regionalism.
“The UWI-OECS collaboration is a meaningful example of a flourishing developmental academic partnership that adheres to the university’s strategic objectives of expanding access to our educational opportunities, while enhancing our alignment and agility in response to our stakeholders’ needs. This partnership continues to facilitate research for regional development as well as foster student development,” Professor Barriteau said.
She also noted previous partnerships between Cave Hill and the OECS, including the establishment of an educational institution which led to what is now the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management; the 2015 MOU for the IMPACT Justice project; the 2016 agreement with UWI-CERMES aimed at incorporating environmental issues into sustainable development agenda of OECS member states, and the 2020 MOU with the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law and Policy Services to improve the sub-region’s capacity in the areas of trade and trade related issues.
Dr Jules, meanwhile, noted that the longest standing collaboration between The UWI Cave Hill Campus and the OECS has been the collaboration with the School of Education in the Joint Board for Teacher Education, which was critical in professionalizing teacher education in the Eastern Caribbean.
According to him, this latest MOU was the crystallization of three major threads of collaboration in education, trade policy and in youth development. “It would allow us to move beyond the remit of the current initiatives to wider possibilities of synergy in areas of critical importance to our regional integration mandate. Either of our institutions may propose new initiatives which could include but not limited to … collaborative initiatives for student development; sharing of knowledge, expertise and best practices; mutual use of services and joint pursuit of mutually beneficial initiatives; mutual access to libraries and resource centres,” he said. Jules added that he hoped the agreement will help to develop the intellectual capital of the OECS using cost-effective measures, disruptive methodologies, and focused interventions.
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