THE OPEN CAMPUS of the University of the West Indies (UWI) will be operational from September.

Pro-Vice Chancellor and Principal of the Open Campus Professor Hazel Simmons-McDonald said it would combine the resources of the School of Continuing Studies, the Distance Education Centre and the Tertiary Level Institutions Unit under one organisational and administrative structure.

Speaking at the UWI School of Continuing Studies graduation ceremony on Saturday at the Roy Marshall Teaching Complex, Cave Hill Campus, she said the new campus would offer programmes online through "multi-mode methodologies" where the curriculum and resources allowed.

"[This] would allow it to extend its services to the furthest reaches of our country, to the diaspora and beyond," she said.

She also noted that the university community conceptualised the campus in response to the expressed needs of the people of the region.

Resident tutor and head of the School of Continuing Studies, Ian Austin, lauded the Open Campus saying that it created opportunities for those persons who were unable to attend traditional classes.

He also highlighted several other accomplishments of the last academic year which he noted were mainly student oriented.

Among these are the student counselling service which assists those with personal difficulties, the student advising service which is geared towards those who are attending university for the first time after many years in the
world of work.

He added that the Caribbean Examinations Council school for prospective fifth formers had continued to be heavily subscribed and was limited only by physical space. (NB)