Now that the idea of a National Community College has been conceived and given birth in Anguilla, some ‘baby steps’ are being taken towards the actual realisation of the tertiary institution. On Monday, this week, was the first of a series of seminars over the next eight weeks designed to launch the college which is expected to have its formal opening in September 2007. The seminars currently have as their main focus the training needs of the hospitality sector, the engine of the island’s economy.

L-R: Dawn Reid, Dr. Smith, Hon. E. Rogers, Mr. Rey and Pastor Gumbs

The first five-day seminar was held at Paradise Cove Resort with a number of participants in attendance. Along with them at the opening ceremony were officials in the Ministry of Education, the Anguilla Hotel and Tourism Association and the Anguilla Chamber of Commerce and Industry, local partners in the Community College Project; members of the Steering Group; the main facilitator for that particular seminar, Dr. Ben Henry of the Sandals Corporate University and the Customer Services Academy of Jamaica, and the permanent co-facilitators, Dr. Phyllis Fleming Banks, Candis Niles and Wilma Vanterpool of Anguilla.

Education Planner and Project Manager, Dawn Reid, said it was a important step towards the establishment of the National Community College and the provision of tertiary education in Anguilla. “Today, we see the beginnings of a hospitality training programme which will ultimately feed into the hospitality division of our soon-to-be-established college,” she stated.

Seminar participants and local Co-facilitators

Mrs. Reid was grateful for the generosity and support of regional partners for making it possible to offer some of the training currently needed in Anguilla. In this connection she expressed gratitude to the Barbados Community College, the Hospitality Institute and the Customer Service Academy of Jamaica and Sandals Corporate University for their valuable assistance.

Permanent Secretary, (Education) and Chairman of the Community College Steering Group, Rodney Rey, said it was a special day for education in Anguilla. “This is because after more than five years of talking about a Community College, we are now taking some baby steps in the realisation of that dream.
“We are today translating our words into action. “The need for this training is great,” he went on. “In fact there is a dire need for skilled, trained and qualified personnel to meet the expanding needs of the private and public sectors. Anguilla’s sustainable development is, and will be, directly affected by our ability to train our young people to fill the jobs in our economy, and particularly in the culinary arts and the technical and engineering fields to support the construction sector and the maintenance of the multi-million dollar plants we are building.”

Some of the seminar participants

Mr. Rey said the college would be designed to meet the varied education needs of Anguillians. “We expect to add business education, teacher training, adult and continuing education and general education,” he added. “In all of this, we are very mindful of the peculiar needs of Anguilla and our planning will take those needs into consideration.”

Minister of Social Development, Evans Rogers, was particularly pleased that the time was coming when tertiary education would be available in Anguilla for its people. He expressed thanks to the Project Steering Group and the National Community Development Unit for their hard work towards making the college a reality, although they were still some challenges to surmount.

He told his listeners that the Government had plans to acquire a permanent physical location for the college. “It will take quite a lot of financing but we are committed,” he said. “In terms of dollars and cents, we cannot equate what it would cost us if we don’t make an attempt in order to put this in place.”

Dr. Ben Smith, the leading seminar facilitator, congratulated the Anguilla Government for embarking on a programme not only to train workers in the hospitality industry but in all service sectors of the economy.

“We can build beautiful hotels, but if the employees do not have the right attitude, they [the hotels] can become white elephants,” he remarked. “It is the staff and their attitudes that bring back the customer…It is the attitude that determines your altitude in an organisation. You will always have a job if you have the right attitude and customer service in dealing with people.”

According to Mrs Dawn Reid, a number of other persons with expertise in the hospitality industry will be coming to Anguilla over the coming weeks to conduct the training seminars.

This week’s seminar has been dealing with the subject Pathways to legendary customer care. The upcoming seminars will include: October 30 to November 3, Events Planning and Management; November 6-10: Food and Beverage Management; Front Office Procedures; and Energy Conservation and Plant Maintenance; November 13-17: Basic Housekeeping Procedures and Basic Food Service.

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