Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Senator Harry Husbands speaking at the start of a Capacity Building Workshop sponsored by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions. (C.Pitt/BGIS)
Standardising and strengthening regional accreditation systems is important to the continued movement and success of people across the Caribbean region.
Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Senator Harry Husbands emphasised this recently as he addressed the start of a Capacity Building Workshop sponsored by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP), at Courtyard by Marriott, Hastings, Christ Church.
Acknowledging that CAAM-HP was integral to the process, he said: “As a people we have always used our movement through this region to share our human resources, sometimes as policemen, teachers or in the medical arena as nurses and doctors. We have always shared one intent – the aspiration of the advancement of the people of this entire region.
“In this era, the vision remains no different as we seek to meet the challenges in a very competitive world. We understand that our survival is in coming together to ensure that in the field of medical education that we offer well-designed curricula and that each of our schools can be ready to meet the agreed upon standards and accreditation which signal to the world that anyone educated in any one of the region’s medical schools is globally recognised and internationally ready in their chosen medical field or health profession.”
Senator Husbands further pointed out that accreditation allowed us to attract quality satellite campuses of reputable universities to our shores. He stressed it would aid the University of the West Indies, particularly Cave Hill Campus to achieve its internal growth strategy through internationalisation.
The symbiotic relationship, he noted, should enable us to take advantage of new technologies and methodological approaches within our student population and also increase the provision of health care for the wider populations.
“As the cost of tertiary education becomes increasingly harder to bear not only for the Governments, but also for individual families, we must remember that the success of the offshore medical students has an economic impact that reverberates throughout the entire economy.”