For the past 2 days, the University of Belize has been hosting the Central American Higher Education Council, or CSUCA for short.
It's an organization that has membership from universities and tertiary level institutions from all of the Central American nations, as well as the Dominican Republic. This confederation, which also includes Belize, meet regularly to discuss the shared challenges that they all face as the higher level educators within their respective countries. They also share best practices, and they as advise each other on educational programs and initiatives that have been tried and tested.
This was their 113th meeting, marking the first time that CSUCA has ever come to Belize. A press release from UB says that apart from organization housekeeping matters, they also discussed and passed important policy decisions for the organization, UB and the University.
7News stopped by today, and found out more about their deliberations.
Here's what The UB President, who is currently acting as the Pro tem President told us:
Clement Sankat - President, UB
"This is a historic meeting for the University of Belize and Belize, in that this is the very first time that the University of Belize has hosted the CSUCA meeting. Belize, our University, is a part of the CSUCA fraternity. In fact, CSUCA is one [of] , if not the oldest university organization in the world. Last year, it celebrated its 70th anniversary. And so, we're pleased to be a part of this 24 university organization in 8th countries of Central America and the Caribbean because the Dominican Republic is part of this. The objectives of this meeting here that is just going to conclude are a couple fold. Firstly, it is a business meeting."
"Over the last day and a half, not only did we deal with the business issues, but we also deal with a number of policy issues."
Francisco Alarcon Alba - Academic Affairs, CSUCA
"We presented and approved several policy papers for the regional higher education. For instance, we have the need to provide access to higher education in Central America. Distance education is an alternative for providing services of higher education to a larger numbers of students. So, we approved a regional framework with some practices, standards and procedures to organize a good, quality distance education offer."
"We also have the intention to improve our research, scientific researching universities. So, we approved a regional policy for improving researching education in higher education. We also approved a regional policy in internationalization of higher education. The idea is that the students have to achieve competencies for the international world, a global capacities that a student has to have, not only in the matters of languages, but also in the matter of inter-cultural approaches. So, we approved a regional policy for internationalization of higher education, in the matter of research, in the matter of research, in the matter of social services, and in the administration of Universities."
Clement Sankat
"Universities are no longer in an ivory tower. Universities in developing countries like ours, where the needs are so great, so many people are untouched. So many students are untouched. So many students do not even have the dream of touching the doors of a university. Well, let's go out to them."
"CSUCA is attempting to bring universities in Central American and the Caribbean much much closer together, working in harmony, sharing resources, using new technologies to connect us."
Nearing the end of the conference, UB signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Nicaragua-Managua. This MOU will allow these 2 universities to collaborate on mutual interests, such as the development of a Medical program for UB.
Email
Print