J-TEC Focussed On Internationalisation Of Tertiary Education Sector

The Jamaica Tertiary Education Commission (J-TEC) is reviewing the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) global and regional conventions with respect to the recognition of qualifications concerning higher education.

Commissioner/Chief Executive Officer of J-TEC, Dr. Dameon Black, said the review is to assist in the “internationalisation” of the local tertiary education sector.

“When we speak to the internationalisation, it is not just about the whole matter of consuming, but also offering our educational products and services to others, inviting their citizens to [study] here, so that they might be able to receive of the quality that we have,” he said.

“We want to note that these two conventions, ratified, will assist us in terms of ensuring that the institutions here are able to facilitate and to move forward. We know and we have established quality, but sometimes, with the stamp of approval that these conventions have and how they tend to assist and facilitate, we’ll be able to better move forward,” he added.

Dr. Black was speaking at a Tertiary Education Forum on Friday (Nov. 22) at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston.

He said that J-TEC is also working on the development of a national qualification system policy, which would enable persons to build on credits earned during their academic journey.

“We have had a history in Jamaica, where certain qualifications are esteemed higher than others. But what tends to happen when you have such a system is that many persons who have concluded other qualifications are not able to move forward or we have the situation where persons… may drop out at a particular point in time, they have nothing to show for it and they then have to restart,” Dr. Black outlined.

“One of the things that this will do is to facilitate the recognition of credits earned and so at whatever point in time in the system that you exit, you might then be able to build from that point,” he said.

He noted that initiatives through the National Qualifications Framework of Jamaica, as well as the Qualifications Registry of Jamaica, will significantly assist the commission in achieving that objective.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information, Dr. Kasan Troupe, in her remarks, said “there is a massive job to do in making Jamaica globally competitive and that is what J-TEC is about”.

“Part of doing that is the quality assurance, getting the regulatory framework in place so that our programmes can stand to scrutiny. We have signed on to international treaties and agreements and we work with UNESCO. So, we have agreed, with some understanding, that we must make sure that the system is cohesive and it is reflective of the national and global agendas,” Dr. Troupe said.