Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Dominica State College (DSC), Brian Meade, says despite the challenges faced by the institution, several strides have been made.
Among them is the reduction of DSC’s operating deficit, he said.
Meade was speaking at the 12th commencement ceremony at the DSC lower campus grounds on Thursday.
“I would like to take this opportunity to report that although we face challenging times, I am happy to say that the DSC was able to reduce its operating deficit by over EC$ 700,000, increase student enrolment by 13 percent, added four new programs, and instituted a new board policy requiring all new and existing faculty to have masters degrees by 2015,” he said.
He also pledged to utilized the increased subvention of EC$ 1.2-million that the institution is receiving from government stating that, “this will go a long way in assisting us to meet our expenses.”
He stated that the DSC will utilize the funds wisely.
Meanwhile, minister for education, Petter Saint Jean, who also spoke at the ceremony, told graduates that they must continue to apply the same level of determination which brought them thus far.
“As you endeavour to become a professional in the field of your choice you will need to apply the same determination that brought you to this moment of accomplishment,” Saint Jean said. “You are the engines of growth that our society strives and depend on. Our ability to attract growth industries and create jobs is dependent on how well we prepare you for the realities of your world.”
A positive way of saying they are still making a loss.
PS. What is the market value of a DSC degree?
Brian, I understand that the college is not an accredited institution. If this is true that means any degree earned from DSC will not be accepted outside of Dominica. What measures are taken in order to get the DSC recognized beyond the boundaries of Dominica?
I am not so concern about recognition in the Caribbean, nevertheless, your degrees, and diplomas may prove worthless, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the other European nations; unless it is affiliated with an accredited University in the nations mentioned, and for that to happen DSC must teach a curriculum that is acceptable to the foreign institutions.
You mentioned your faculty involves in teaching must all have master degrees, but that may not be enough to cause an institution such as DSC to gain accreditation, fact is before that can happen there must be a Chancellor with a doctorate degree in something; there must be more than one faculty holding a doctorate; in most cases you need some of your professors to have a PhD. in something, along with a certain amount of years teaching experience. The most important thing is to find an accredited institution (University) to accept, and associate with your junior college curriculum.
Without that students graduating from DSC, may find that if they decide to use their credits to transfer to a university, or four year college in any of the nations I mentioned above may find that their credit will not be accepted, hence, they would have wasted two years at DSC.
In the case of the University of The West Indies, as far as I know the only State in the United States which recognized degrees from the UWI is the state of California; and I understand that is because they teach a curricular similar to at least two Universities operating in California. In the event DSC is an accredited institution, perhaps it is time to make the public aware of that, state which international institution is recognizing DSC.
Francisco Etienne-Dods Telemaque
In total Total agreement with Mr. Telemacque. The Institution is not accredited and it costing so much.
College used to be free. They put a high price tag to it. So they can come with their jacket and tell us how much the helping us………………..
God bless Dominica and all the effort that are put in place to help our youth.
So we only good for recycling people in positions in DA. Was it not the same BM who was at DBS!!!!! well well well we know what happened there
From all that was said in the article, this is what you found to be most worthy of commenting on?
Very good Mr. Meade.