Found at: http://www.anguillaguide.com/article/articleprint/3647/-1/140/
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COMMUNITY COLLEGE MAY OPEN SEPTEMBER
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Aside from the academic studies, the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School in Anguilla is offering pre-vocational training for students in such subject areas like expressive arts, music, creative arts, arts and craft, industrial arts, home economics and hotel trades. The aim is to prepare the students for further training in technical and vocational areas in line with their career goals. The Ministry of Education is now busily preparing for the next stage and that is the establishment of a National Community College.
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L-R: Rodney Rey, Dawn Reid, Bernice Crichlow-Earle and Hon. Evans Rogers
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“Our major need now is for a post-secondary institution to train young Anguillians for all the jobs that are becoming available in the hotel, construction and the financial services sectors,” said Rodney Rey, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education. “It is the intention of the Ministry to have the National Community College open in the new school year, 2006. We have been talking about it for too long and we now need to fast track the plan. Way back in 2003 we had public consultations on that college. We had two consultants, our own Dr. Arthur Richardson and Dr. Bevis Peters from the University of the West Indies who did the initial survey.”
Mr. Rey, speaking in an interview with The Anguillian, continued: “We don’t have the physical, financial and human resources to establish all phases of the college at once. It is our intention, in collaboration with our private sector partners, like the Anguilla Hotel and Tourism Association and the Anguilla Chamber of Commerce and industry, to work on the phased implementation of the college. The first phase will be the start of the hospitality training component given the emphasis of tourism in our economy; so by September 2006, we are hoping to have some on-island programme to support our hospitality trades in Anguilla. The plan thereafter is to add other programmes like engineering, building trades and business subjects to the college.
“We will not build a college initially. The long-term aim is to have a new high school to replace Campus A and re-convert the existing campus of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School to the National Community College. In the interim we intend to use rented properties for the start-up of the college.”
Mr. Rey said the student body would be persons who were doing pre-university courses such as associate degrees; students leaving high school who completed the pre-vocational programmes; persons already employed in the hotel and construction sectors who need to upgrade their skills and become certified; and those who were involved in the Continuing Education Programme in such courses like cake-making, dress-making, electricity, auto mechanics, etc. “It will be a community college in the true sense of the word, offering programmes available to a wide range of abilities and interests,” Rey explained. He stated that one of the models being looked at was the Fitzroy Bryant College of Further Education in St. Kitts which provides for a Sixth Form, teacher training, business, hotel and engineering programmes.
Meanwhile, Education Planner and Project Coordinator, Dawn Reid, disclosed that the Caribbean Development Bank has offered to provide some technical assistance through a hospitality consultant in the person of Bernice Crichlow-Earle. She is the Director of the Hospitality Institute of the Barbados Community College which is considered to be a model for the region. Mrs. Crichlow arrived in Anguilla this week to work with the Project Steering Group and to put together a phased programme to meet the island’s training needs.
One of the matters with which she is concerned is staffing for the hospitality section of the Anguilla Community College. The Ministry, through its partnership with the Hotel and Tourism Association, is hoping to have some of the skilled personnel working as chefs, front office managers, wine stewards and so on to serve as tutors in the programme as part of their contribution. At the same time, it will be arranged for hotel staff without certification to attend the college and become certified.
The Government has appropriated an initial start-up budget of one hundred thousand dollars for the college and will eventually increase that amount substantially as the demand arises.
Minister of Education, Evan Rogers said: “The community college will have several different divisions. After the hospitality division we will have to go into the vocational and technical areas where we will train electricians, plumbers, builders and so on. There is no question that the tourism industry has driven the economy over the last decade and as a result it is incumbent upon us, in terms of Government, the Education Department and the people in general, to able to train Anguillians locally. For a number of years we have been sending our students to the community colleges in Barbados and Tortola and it is an initiative that we have looked at very closely and we think it would be unique to train our own people here in Anguilla.”
The Project Steering Committee comprises the Permanent Secretary, Education, the Chief Education Officer, the Coordinator for Adult and Continuing Education, the Permanent Secretary for Economic Development, Investment, Commerce and Tourism, the Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, the Executive Director of the Hotel and Tourism Association and the Education Planner and Project Coordinator.