The University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) has announced new initiatives to utilise information andcommunication technology (ICT) to deliver more courses and programmes to a larger number of learners in Jamaica and across the Caribbean.

Speaking a week ago at UCC’s commencement ceremony, Dr Winston Adams, group executive chairman of the UCC Group, disclosed that the institution had recently entered into a partnership agreement with new cable television company readytv . The partnership will provide broadcasting space to UCC on readytv’s network, which currently provides coverage to Kingston and St Andrew, parts of St Ann, St Mary, and Clarendon, ahead of a gradual roll-out across the island.

“We will now acquire a cable channel which will allow us the opportunity to utilise broadcasting space to provide a variety of educational features and programmes,” Adams told the large gathering, which included more than 700 graduands. He said the partnership would also include UCC’s creative partner iCreate Institute, a subsidiary of the E-Media Interactive Group.

Dr Adams also referenced UCC’s recent partnerships with international ICT-based education providers Coursera and EdX, which offer a higher level of relevant interactive video courses from the world’s top universities, including Stanford, University of Michigan, John Hopkins University, MIT, and Harvard, to name a few.

UCC also has partnership arrangements with international providers of online, on-demand short professional courses, including Udemy and Cisco International. On completion of these interactive video courses, successful participants receive certificates of achievement from the respective university.

“We believe these new partnerships could potentially further revolutionise our tertiary education sector in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean,” Dr Adams said. He noted that over the years UCC, through online programmes, has made an outstanding impact on Caribbean students, including graduands from Grenada and St Vincent & the Grenadines who were present at the commencement ceremony at the National Arena last week Sunday.

In this regard, Dr Adams announced an expansion of the range of undergraduate online offerings from six to nine degrees effective Fall 2017. The total number of undergraduate and graduate degree programmes to be offered via face-to-face and online modalities has therefore now been increased to approximately 50. These include UCC’s local flagship graduate degrees — the Commonwealth Executive Masters in Business Administration and Masters in Public Administration, which are also being offered fully online.