attended by representatives from various Caribbean area republics and territories; (4) the undertaking of a project to survey and preserve West Indian archival records, under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation; (5) participation by physicians and medical staff members from the College's Teaching Hospital in medical meetings and conferences in British Guiana and British Honduras; and (6) the holding of a Creole language studies conference, of special import to certain British and non-British Caribbean territories, under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

A

CHAPTER VIII

Adult Education

DULT EDUCATION in the British Caribbean areas is being interpreted for the purposes of this chapter as including various programs of education and training for persons beyond elementary school age who are unable or do not desire to attend a full-time program of instruction at a regular institution of secondary or higher learning, or who having had such instruction require or desire further specialized education. Such programs may vary in scope and level of instruction from literacy training for adults to university level classes on an extension basis. They may include such different types of instruction as basic education in health and dietary practices for persons living in underdeveloped rural areas, vocational training for apprentices and others in evening or part-time classes at technical institutes or elsewhere, and specially designed advanced courses or seminars for specialists. In short, for our purposes here, they include all the various programs embraced under the headings of Community, Literacy, adult, and Fundamental Education.

There are a number of agencies, institutions, and groups in the British Caribbean territories carrying on activities in the broad field of adult education in this sense. The growing interest in such education is also evidenced by the fact that it has been dealt with at several conferences. Of particular interest was the First Caribbean Seminar on Adult Education sponsored by various agencies and institutions in Jamaica, as well as by UNESCO and the British Council, which was held in Jamaica in September 1952. Attending the Conference were representatives not only from the British Caribbean territories, but also from Puerto Rico, Surinam, Martinique, Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panama, UNESCO, FAO, the Caribbean Commission, and the West Indies Development and Welfare Organization. The broad view of adult education as envisaged at the Seminar was evidenced by its statement that "education must be considered as one means of community development and Adult Education as a term including a variety of agencies of social and economic improvement." It noted that "this comprehensive view of Adult Education was reflected in the composition of the Seminar, which included members of the clergy, doctors, agri

1

culturists, and librarians, as well as social workers and educationalists." The underlying premise of the Conference was that attention to and expenditure on Adult Education must not await the establishment of universal schooling, despite the recognized need for a vast expansion of regular schooling facilities.

Other Conferences which considered and emphasized the role of adult education in the Caribbean generally but drew heavily in reaching their conclusions on experiences and examples of developments in British territories were the aforementioned Caribbean Commission sponsored Joint Conference on Education and Small Scale Farming in 1954, and the Sixth Session of the West Indian Conference in 1955. The documentation prepared by a UNESCO Consultant on Community and Adult Education in the Caribbean also will be recalled in this connection.

In addition to evening and part-time technical and trade training for workers in Technical Institutes, which has already been discussed, specific examples of other forms of adult education will make clear the variety of activities underway in recent years.

UCWI Department of Extra-Mural Studies

The University College of the West Indies' Department of ExtraMural Studies has been carrying on almost from the inception of the College a program of adult education. This has included not only instructional programs for adult learning and self-improvement, but also seminars, lecture courses, and the like, intended to consider and help solve some of the practical and immediate problems in the British West Indian community. As its name implies, the ExtraMural Department functions outside the regular residential degree programs of the University College. It operates in each of the British Caribbean territories in somewhat the manner of a university extension program in the United States, but with some differences.2

Designed to bring the University to the people and to develop leadership in meeting the everyday needs and problems of British West Indian society, the Department is organized under a Director, who has full professional status. It includes Staff Tutors, or Department Heads, in Industrial Relations, Radio Education, Drama, and Social Work, working out of the Mona campus. The field staff consists of 7 Resident Tutors, one for each of the British Caribbean territories, except that the Windward and Leeward

1 The First Caribbean Seminar on Adult Education, 1952, p. 3.

2 A detailed description of the activities of the Extra-Mural Department is found in J. R. Kidd, Adult Education in the Caribbean: The Extra-Mural Department of the University College of the West Indies (Multilithed, 1958).

Island groups have Resident Tutors for each of the two groups as a whole. These Resident Tutors are in charge of the entire ExtraMural Program in their respective territories. In addition the Resident Tutor serves as a liaison point between the UCWI and prospective full-time students in each territory, in such matters as supplying information on the College, conducting scholarship and entrance examinations, and holding interviews with prospective students. In each territory or group of territories there is a Territorial Advisory Committee for Extra-Mural Studies, composed of local educational, governmental, and community leaders, to advise the Resident Tutor on program needs in the particular territory. The main elements in the program include (1) for adults generally, instruction through lectures, discussion groups, short courses, the use of radio, and formal classes at various levels of instruction, embracing in some territories preparation for the examinations for the School and Higher Certificate and the General Certificate of Education, as well as for the external examinations for degrees of British Universities, and (2) special courses, projects, and activities to meet the needs of groups which have responsibilities for leadership, such as teachers, civil servants, extension workers, trade union officials, and others.

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Some idea of the specific nature of the activities of the Department of Extra-Mural Studies in one field-education-has already been indicated in the discussion of work undertaken in collaboration with the University College's Department of Education. A listing of some of the other activities of Extra-Mural Department in the weekly Newsletter of the University College in 1959 makes clear their wide nature and scope. Included among the many activities so listed were the following undertakings which the Department conducted or co-sponsored, or in which it participated:

1. Preparation by the Department's Radio Education Unit of a Catalogue of Programs available for broadcast or for playing on tape recordings. 2. The Annual Dance and Drama Festival held in British Honduras under Department sponsorship, followed by a short course in dramatic production by the Department's Staff Tutor in Drama.

3. A program of some 40 regular classes in various subjects to be offered in Jamaica by the Department, with the level of instruction ranging from introductory to external degree (University of London) standard. 4. In cooperation with the Teachers' Association of St. Kitts, a 4 day Conference of Primary and Secondary School teachers on the theme "Education for West Indian Citizenship."

5. A 4-day exhibition in Trinidad showing in Sculpture the story of the steel band, accompanied by lectures, including one on "A National Culture in Formation."

3 UCWI Calendar, 1958-59, p. 17.

6. A series of lectures in Trinidad under the title of "The Federal Principle," the first two being given by the American historian, Prof. Henry Steele Commager of Columbia University.

7. The Fourth Residential Summer Course in Public and Business Administration at the University College for leaders in government and business in the various territories.

8. Participation by the Department in a 6-week Summer Seminar at the University College, under the sponsorship of the Canadian and UCWI branches of the World University Service on the "West Indies" in Transition: the Implications of Political Independence," with study tours to various Caribbean territories at the termination of the Semi

nar.

9. A summer course in Small Farm Economics for officers of the Jamaican Yallahs Valley Land Authority and selected farmers in that area. 10. Participation by the newly appointed Staff Tutor in Social Work in a Juvenile Delinquency Seminar in British Honduras and in planning a training course for urban social welfare workers; the Staff Tutor was also authorized to attend, under sponsorship of the U. S. Government's International Cooperation Administration, a meeting of the Council of Social Work Education in the United States, and to visit U. S. University Schools of Social Work.

11. Organization of a series of Shakespearian plays by the Staff Tutor in Drama, developed principally for secondary schools having students planning to be examined on these plays on their certificate examinations.

12. Short Seminars and courses for public health nurses and hospital supervisors on various problems in public health and hospital services. 13. A special course on English language for postmen in Trinidad, at the request of the Postmen's Section of the Civil Service Association of Trinidad and Tobago.

14. A residential Workshop in Jamaica for artists from the British Caribbean territories.

15. A 5-day Conference on Labor Education at the Mona campus for labor leaders from all the British Caribbean territories, as well as cooperation by the Staff Tutor in Industrial Relations in drawing up plans in individual territories for special training courses in trade union activities.

16. Participation in a weekend Conference on Adult Education in Jamaica. 17. Organization of an evening class program for Trinidad and Tobago for 1959-60 which was to emphasize education for the adult student at a general level, rather than tutorial classes for students studying for external degrees.

18. Organization of courses in Barbados, St. Vincent, and Dominica on Political Problems of the Caribbean, Public Administration, and oral Spanish and French.

19. A 10-day residential course entitled "Agricultural Communications" for branch organizers of the Jamaica Agricultural Society and 4-H Club officers.

20. A short course entitled "Parliamentary Procedure," with the emphasis on committee procedure, organized in Jamaica for YWCA and YMCA