Community Colleges Critical to Jamaica’s Development and Educational Advancement

Community Colleges in tomorrow’s society will demand the new skill sets needed to facilitate better collaborative and consultative work which can bring college and community into a unified system.

The view was expressed by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in an address Wednesday (January 09) to the 17th Conference of the Council of Community Colleges of Jamaica (CCJ) Conference 2013 in St. Ann.

Underscoring the important role of community colleges, Prime Minister Simpson Miller said new pressures were forcing changes to the community college system as “the kind of education needed in today’s global economy places greater emphasis on new and changing skill sets.”

The Prime Minister told conference participants that changes in the local and external environment required a constant rethinking of the developmental education model and in this context, new social relationships and synergies are required to enhance business capacity, increase teaching effectiveness, and to promote opportunities for community development.

The Prime Minister also highlighted global practices of Community Colleges in more developed countries which she said, regarded community colleges as a potent mechanism for economic growth and development with colleges not only expanding their cohort of graduates in response to current and future needs of the society but were also centres of educational innovations. She called on the local community college fraternity to pull important lessons from such experiences.

The three day Conference is being held under the theme, “Shaping the Future: Changing Roles for Community Colleges” and aims to begin the process of reshaping minds and attitudes to reform and develop community colleges in 2013 and beyond.

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