Principal University of West Indies Mona (University of West Indies Mona)

Jamaica is a major player in the Caribbean, being the second biggest economy in CARICOM with the second largest population. But it also has serious competition on all fronts – tourism, financial and others. What are the main competitive advantages Jamaica has, and what are the areas where it can still improve?

Jamaica’s brand is very strong.  If you go anywhere in the world, our musicians led by Bob Marley, and our athletes led by Shelly Anne Fraser and Usain Bolt have put us firmly on the international map.  Strangely enough, Jamaica is loved as far as Japan and China.  In addition to that, our proximity to the world’s strongest economy United States gives us many advantages.  Certainly most of our tourists are still coming from North America.  We do a lot of trade with them.  Therefore, if we have all of these advantages, why are we not doing better? There is no shortage of ideas in our country.  If you go from the leadership of our government to the man in the street to the academic institutions people are full of ideas.  The lack, here, is the ability or the know how to implement such ideas.  As the leading University in the Caribbean, the University of the West Indies bears some responsibility for that.  I was made principal of this campus in 2013, two and a half years ago, and at my inauguration I said that the government of Jamaica has not done enough over the years and also I said the University had not done enough.  Most of the ministers including the prime minister are graduates from the University of the West Indies.  It means that the university itself is doing something right but it also doing something wrong.  We certainly have improved the human capital in education and training but we failed to contribute positively towards the economic development of Jamaica.  Our graduates are well educated and well trained but a lot of them leave the country. The ones that stay do not know how to move from an idea to a business.  Entrepreneurship is lacking.  What are we doing for this? We made a commitment three years ago to change the way we do business and have a positive impact.  We teach entrepreneurship on Campus and we have a business incubator, which takes ideas and converts them into businesses.  Many of the incubated businesses come to nothing but some of them succeed.  We have moved with private institutions as for them to participate actively in our academic programs.  The idea is to help us strengthen our curriculum.  They offer to our students internships as well as scholarships.  By partnering with the private sector, we hope our students will be in tune and be ready for the workplace when they leave. Also, based on the experience they get it is our hope they will be able to establish their own business.

One thing that came up on a regular basis in our interviews so far has been the value of the Jamaican people as a comparative advantage relative to other countries – we’ve heard that from Jamaicans and from foreigners. What do you attribute that to, and what role has the education system and University of West Indies played in shaping that human capital?

We trained 90% of the professionals in Jamaica.  Our business school is now turning out business leaders.  We also have weaknesses.  Jamaican people are extremely talented and a very bright population.  The educational system is flawed because I don’t believe it is designed to bring out the best of our young people.  When I was deputy principal of the campus, 3 years ago, the Dean of the campus Professor Ian Bixel who was then just the professor of social sciences, asked me for a room on campus where he would train some students in the art of film making.  I gave him a small room in a termite infested building.  He called me and asked me to come and talk to his students and I was so impressed.  He had 15 students from the inner city community, mostly men on the campus.  They have never done anything with their lives and they come from very difficult living conditions.  They were so engaged and so disciplined.  They finished and got a certificate for their participation.  In the months following that, almost all of them got employment.  TVJ produces a program in Jamaica called Royal Parm estate that is very popular and it has gone viral and one of the graduates edits that program.  That is how talented our people are.  Through this program, we have given them a tool to make a contribution to our communities.  The education has been marginalizing students and this need to be changed.  The university needs to build the leaders that will be making that change in this regard.  The other area where we are strong is culture and entertainment.  We started a Bachelor program in film and animation and now we are also starting a program in culture.  We need to address those issues in a meaningful way. The prime minister has a very young team and I hope this will help in making headway with all of these.

For a number of years now, Jamaica has been in the long process of an incremental educational reform. Could you walk us through what has changed so far, and what you, as a university principal, would like to see happen in the future?

In three years, I hope to see UWI is as globally recognized regional university.  We are in the top 500 and we need to improve that ranking without changing our mandate.  Our mandate is to serve the Caribbean people because they built this university with their tax dollars.  We must be an activist university.  Apart from the 70s and 80s where we had some activism in our department of social science faculties, we have since been quiet.  We are trying to build on that now.  As for the cannabis industry in Jamaica, this campus has been the leader in providing information and research regarding cannabis for medicinal purposes.  We refer to them as the cannabis coalition.  We must lobby the Jamaican government, the Prime Minister Holness, and his education minister that share similar vision for education in Jamaica, as they understand the intellectual capacity rests with us. This summarizes my thought as an activist university. It starts in Jamaica but it will affect the whole Caribbean.

The University of the West Indies is present in 18 countries. What sets UWI apart from other universities and what sets the Jamaican and the Kingston campuses apart from the other UWI campuses?

The University of the West Indies started on this campus in 1948 with the faculty of Medical Sciences.  It has now grown into four campuses, one in Trinidad, on in Barbados.  There is a virtual campus, which specializes in online programs.  We now have programs in all the disciplines on all the campuses.  Each campus is in a sovereign country so the campus cannot ignore national priorities because the funding mechanism is arranged as such.  Even though we are a regional institution established by royal charter, our funding comes mainly from the Jamaican government (85%) and another small amount from the other 17 governments.  The same thing would apply to Trinidad and the same thing would apply to Barbados.  I am one of those who pushed for engineering, law and dentistry to come to this campus in the interest of Jamaica.  I realized that the Jamaican students would not be able to afford to travel to the other campuses to study these courses.  Therefore, having three campuses with similar programs under one University is more beneficial.  We intend to have a single IT platform so the Vice chancellor can have access all campuses at once instead of sending the same message multiple times.  This will further also allow us to exchange lectures across campuses using live this technology.  We want to strengthen our worldview by strengthening the connection between the campuses.

Technology is an increasingly important factor in education. We have seen that the University Hospital of the West Indies has just transitioned to digital management system. What other technological innovations do you plan to roll out in the near future?

The university hospital trains our medical people, and therefore the digitalization of the hospital has been a priority.  The university hospital is still one of the best hospitals in Jamaica.  We have a sickle cell clinic, which is known worldwide.  We have excellent doctors and we want to bring all these medical platforms under one system.  It will enable telemedicine.  The transfer of patient will be become easier. Patient records can be transferred easily without having to kill trees.  The new minister of Health led by the Medical chief of staff has mandated us to implement a telemedicine program in Jamaica.  This will allow a doctor in Port Maria needing a consultation or an X-ray to have it read by a radiologist somewhere else.  Understand that Jamaica cannot afford to put a radiologist in every place but with the technology today we can transfer information back and forth to gain solutions.  We are working with all the teacher colleges in Jamaica and we want to ensure that they maintain the UWI quality.  We ensure that their degree is equivalent to what we offer on our campuses.  We want to use the technology to enhance this as well.  There is also a research and education network in the Caribbean called CARIBNET.  We have the network in place but we have a lot of work to do to make it sustainable.  It will be cheaper and much more efficient.   My mandate before I leave this office is to replace most of the senior management with young people.  People who can act quickly and think fast with the capacity to be connected at all time.  We are living in the time of now.  My generation is having difficulty understanding such progress and advancement.

In your career as a surgeon, as a dean, now as a principal, what have been your proudest achievements, and what were the biggest challenges? What is next for you?
My proudest achievement is the expansion of the faculty of medical sciences.  My career started as a surgeon and I was able to transform old-fashioned casualty departments into emergency departments.  Every week we started a training program to train emergency physicians so every emergency room in Jamaica has a consultant emergency physician trained at the University of the West Indies.  All of this led me to become the Dean of the faculty of Medicines.  The visible evidence is the modern basic medical sciences complex.  It’s the largest and newest building on campus.  The faculty admitted 80 to 100 students a year. I am the madman that trebled the enrollment to 350 students.  I would like to do more but the faculty needs to be psychologically ready.  Another reason I’m proud of this is that we funded the building through our full fee paying program.    We now take students into a program where the demand is high.  We take 10 to 15% unqualified students.  There are many students who are bright but cannot get into medicine.  We decided if these people could fund their own education why can’t we let then in? So that is what we did.  You would think it would work against us but it has worked.  That is the most satisfying thing I have done in my career.  Sometimes this is the only person who has had tertiary education in an entire rural community.  At graduation they hire buses to bring the entire extended family for them to be able come to graduation.  When these people thank me I am fulfilled.  The full fee paying program transformed and is still saving the campus as it generates a lot of money.  This is the transformation and expansion of the faulty of medical sciences.

Readers of HBR include some of the most influential business leaders and decision makers in the world. As a conclusion to this interview, what is your final message to them?

My final message is that Jamaica has a bright future.  We are at a place where our leaders realized that we have not been doing a good job.  As you know over the past 40 years, we have only grown 1%, which is not acceptable.  I believe our politicians are now serious - both in the previous government and now this one.  They now understand the importance of strengthening our economy and what we need to do to make Jamaica a place where people can invest in a safe environment.  We still need to deal with crime but they have the full support of the Jamaican people.  Jamaican people themselves now understand and they are now tired of poverty.  Going forward I really believe we will achieve our third division. With all of these people working together with the academic institutions, I believe we are going to see transformation in the Jamaican society.  The growth we need is going to come and the real beneficiaries will be the people of Jamaica.