SINCE achieving university status six years ago, Northern Caribbean University has nearly tripled its student intake, added three satellite campus sites and increased the number of departments from three to 17.

The number of undergraduate programmes has moved from 36 to 56, graduate programmes increased from two to 11 and all its programmes were accredited by the Adventist Accrediting Association in Washington DC, and 14 by government's accrediting body, the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ).

Front view of the Northern Caribbean University's main campus in Mandeville.

However, NCU heads are now finding that despite their growth, local public perception is still not generally in their favour.

According to Dr William Smith, NCU vice-president of academic administration, many persistently regard the university and its programmes as inferior to those of the University of the West Indies and the University of Technology.

They have "those negative perceptions that 'All they teach is Bible' and 'It's a little more than a prep school' and some say, 'It's a little more than a high school'. I've heard those terms but those are absolutely untrue," Dr Smith told Career&Education.

"The fact that a lot of people who work in the government came up through UTech and UWI, they give, in my mind, a lot more recognition to those two universities than they do ours (NCU)," he said.
"Part of it is we have always been perceived as a church university. We make no apology for that, but it keeps us from getting the recognition as fast as we would like."

These criticisms by mainly Jamaicans have, in the past, kept some of NCU's education graduates from accessing jobs.

SMITH . our critics need to become educated

"Our graduates from the teacher education department are being told by personnel from the schools where they seek jobs and also from the regional offices that they are pre-trained graduates," Smith said.

These people, he added, are insisting that the graduates have not done teacher education and need to be certified by a teacher's college, even though the NCU's teacher education department is a member of the Joint Board of Teacher Education and its programmes are accredited by the UCJ.

"The problems do not affect nursing or business graduates, many of whom are employed in management or middle management positions or working in technical areas across the globe, with good results and feedback.

"We don't get complaints of poor performance. The critics need to become educated as to what really takes place here, they need to come see our facilities, talk to our graduates, they need to go see some of them at the workplace to satisfy themselves and stop talking rubbish all over the place. We could not be doing rubbish here for 86 years and still survive."

NCU's history and growth

Owned and operated by the West Indies Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventist, NCU had its origins in 1919 as the West Indian Training School for high school students.

A few years later it was upgraded to college status, then renamed 40 years later as the West Indies College. By late 1999, the demand for university education for Jamaicans living in central and western Jamaica led to a further transition to university status in June 1999.

At that time, there were 1,800 students and about 60 academic staff on the books, but by 2003, student enrollment grew to 5,300 and staff grew to over 300.

The pull of students has been attributed in part to the university's location in central Jamaica, economical and flexible tuition rates and the fact that many UWI and UTech programmes are oversubscribed.

Even more significant is that the school attracts members of the Seventh-Day Adventist community, the largest religious denomination in Jamaica, and its programmes promote a rounded education with strong emphasis on moral values - a drawing card for many parents.

Of note are NCU's:
. work study programme which provides the opportunity for some students to earn money to pay for tuition;

. flexible curriculum that allows struggling students to package a programme based on what they can pay for; and a

. manual arts programme where students are required to give 568 hours of community or campus service such as gardening, housekeeping or office work, to develop character and good work ethics.

In the last five years, the university added two extension sites, one in Brown's Town and the other in Montego Bay, and less than a year ago purchased a new building on Half Way Tree Road which now has 600 students enrolled.

Despite the expansion efforts, office, laboratory and classroom space constraints remain a real challenge for some departments.

For example, the nursing department has a waiting list of over 200 nurses, occasioned by a growing number of high school students who want to go straight to the degree, and an increasing number of older nurses with certificates seeking upgrades to bachelor's degrees.

The situation is nearly the same for persons wanting to pursue the associate or bachelor's degree programmes in mass communications.
"People are clamouring to get in and we are expanding our laboratory facility to facilitate them," said Smith.

"We take in about 50 annually, (but) my instructions have been to restrict the intake this year to about 20 until all the facilities are adequately in place."

It takes approximately $1 billion per year to run the university, 80 per cent of which comes from tuition fees and 10 per cent from its commercial activities, which include a 12-room hotel, a campus store, copy centre, printing press and a wood shop that makes and supplies furniture.

The other 10 per cent is funded from six per cent of the tithes paid over to the West Indies Union Conference by thousands of local and regional SDA churches.

One of NCU's immediate plans is to expand its research programmes. Recently, the university started research work in the commercialisation of breadfruit, and another looking at the best ways to reclaim bauxite from mined-out lands.

The school has also presented a proposal to the government to establish a Caribbean Centre for Applied Bio-Systems Research which will be devoted entirely to research.

Recently, the university acquired the 30,000 square foot property which once housed Westico Foods, an earlier commercial venture that produced bread, cornflakes, bullas and vegetarian foods, but was closed after a shift in management and a fire three years ago.

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