Strengthening Distance Education in the Caribbean

This project aims to increase employment and other income-generation opportunities by improving access to post-secondary education for women and men living in remote and under-served communities of the Caribbean. The project seeks to strengthen the Open Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) to make high-quality education available to more people across the Caribbean through the use of distance education technologies. This is key in a region where countries are separated by the sea making it difficult for many people to access the three "traditional" campuses of UWI (in Trinidad Jamaica and Barbados). The virtual Open Campus seeks to deliver expanded program offerings that are better aligned with labour market needs and undertake stronger marketing outreach to students. Some project activities include: (i) designing developing and delivering demand-driven gender and environmentally sensitive post-secondary distance education programs to students across the Caribbean; (ii) training faculty instructors and tutors in gender and environmentally sensitive course design development and delivery; (iii) conducting a comprehensive analysis of program requirements to better respond to labour market needs; and (iv) setting up new library virtual services (online) that can be accessed by all Open Campus learning sites throughout the Caribbean.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (i) enhanced provision by the Open Campus of gender equitable market-driven distance learning program offerings to a broader student base including those from under-served communities; and (ii) improved gender and environmentally responsive-management by the Open Campus of human material and financial resources of its learning sites and programs.