Distance Education Centre
The University of the West Indies Distance Education Centre
The University of the West Indies Distance Education Centre (UWIDEC) in concert with faculties of UWI located on the three campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, in addition to with other organizations, to formulate and deliver quality programmes by distance, in order to meet the learning needs with the people of the Caribbean. You will find DE centres located out of all English-speaking Caribbean countries that support UWI.
The overarching aim of the UWIDEC would be to provide top class distance education for Caribbean people, as well as in so doing help UWI achieve its mandate of widening access to tertiary level education and training, thereby unlocking the possibility of the region for development and growth. Driven through the commitment to promote increased use of university education, and recognizing the specific and special needs on the distance education student, the UWIDEC assumes charge role in ensuring that UWI’s distance programmes are responsive, learner-centered and cost-effective.
In 1983, UWI formally began offering distance education courses having an audio teleconferencing system that was known as the UWI Distance Teaching Experiment- later Enterprise- UWIDITE. Course deliver was primarily via teleconferencing, but students also received supplementary print materials. Besides formal programmes like the Certificate in operation Administration plus the Certificate in Education programmes, UWI also offered outreach and related programmes in heath, agriculture, and education and facilitated UWI administrative meetings within the teleconferencing system.
This brought students from non-campus sites into immediate connection with their campus-based lecturers.
In recent years, the drive is to enhance the quality of UWI distance education offerings, and move towards as a full dual mode institution, where distance education programmes are offered alongside traditional in the flesh programmes. On August 1, 1996, the amalgamation from the Distance Education Unit, Challenge, and UWIDITE was completed, giving rise on the Distance Education Centre (DEC).
