Vision 2022: That's the name of the University of Belize's new transformational plan. President Clement Sankat and his team have been working on this plan for about a year and it was officially launched today at the Radisson. It is a very ambitious plan - one that will introduce a wide range of new Bachelors programs as well as a few Masters programs - and that is just one part it. Now while all that sounds good - where will the University get the money to fund these very expensive changes? Sankat told us more about vision 2022 and about the University's financial challenges.
Clement Sankat, President, University of Belize
"The plan that we have developed touches on all the important faucets of the university. The important faucets are teaching and learning, the types of graduates we produce, the programs that we have in place, this view of research, knowledge creation, innovation and fields of service and of course the plan also talks about how the University will deliver these things because we have to have service side to the University itself."
"But the big thing I think the people of Belize would be very interested in and it is young students is that the University of Belize is going to leap forward to give young people of Belize opportunity for University education that they never taught would come to Belize."
"This is a living plan, this is not a plan for a piece of paper on a shelf. Last year we moved our pharmacy program from an associate's degree to a full -fledged Bachelors program, the Med lab program also from associates to Bachelors and we are going to launch a number of new ones today also. For many many years UB has been teaching an associate's degree in agriculture in Central farm, it is now going to go to a bachelor's degree. We have a brand new re-vamped bachelors program in Biology, new program in Chemistry, we are going to come forward with a Bachelor's degree in Marine Biology. Last year we launched our early childhood education programs right across the University, training teachers for the early childhood education environment. We are going to shortly launching a master in education leadership training our school administrators to become better leaders."
Courtney Weatehrburne, reporter
"Now it is a great plan but you mentioned also it is looking at how you will realize this plan, what are some of the idea in terms of finances and of course lecturers getting more lectures who are qualified to teach some of those same new bachelors courses."
Clement Sankat, President, University of Belize
"You have touched an important point, getting the resources, the University of Belize has done its SWAT analysis, one of our weakness is our finances because there is a deficit, there is a gap between income and expense, we have to close it so we have a proposal with our Government to help us close that gap."
"But the gap will also be closed by improving efficiency at the University. We have to reduce wherever we can waste and cost that are not bringing value."
Other aspects of the plan include infrastructural upgrades to the Belmopan campus including building labs for the engineering and the new biology and chemistry programs. There are also a number of other programs that the University is planning on offering later on including a Bachelors degree in Sociology, Psychology, Criminal Justice, Archeology among others. The University will also look into getting international academic accreditation. So as we said, it is a grand and costly plan and the University will need all the help it can get from the Government and even private sector. That's because the University is currently operating at $3 million dollar annual deficit. Today the President indicated that the government may increase this annual subvention by another $2 Million to defray some of the cost of the new programs. Education Minister Patrick Faber pledged his full support, though he admitted that he was only acting Prime Minister and was not the Minister of Finance, so he could not pledge a $3 Million subvention increase offhand.
Email
Print