New President for Dominica State College     Dr. J. Annette Bardouille, a Dominican, has been appointed President, Dominica State College, effective April 26, 2005. Dr. Bardouille's record of achievement and previous leadership positions at various US educational institutions and business organizations make her the ideal choice for the position of President.     The College is ready for the challenge that it faces and looks forward with great excitement to the leadership that Dr. Bardouille will provide. Her appointment is at a very crucial time in the College's history, states a release from the College.     Now that the DSC is at an important phase of its development, a President with a different international perspective is good for the institution and we look forward to the strong leadership, said Zechariah Pollock, Chairman of the College's Board of Governors.     The release informs that the College has prepared itself for this new position by developing the following: Academic and Administrative Policy Manual (2004), Dominica State College. Board of Governors Operational Manual (2004), Dominica State College. Development of College Students Handbook (2005), Dominica State College. Draft Collective Agreement between the College and the bargaining unit representing the staff and instructors.     As the College completes its third year of operation, it has taken time to reflect on the experiences of those years and learned from the experiences.     The release continues, with the leadership of Dr. Bardouille, the College looks forward to consolidating the second phase of the College's redevelopment, as was proposed in the original College Re-development plans of 2000 and based on its previous experiences.     The Second Phase of development called for consolidation of the Phase One activities and the establishment or expansion of new programmes and services (including Hospitality and Tourism, Teacher Training, Adult and Continuing Education, Agriculture, Academic Support and Advising).     The College is prepared to enter this new Phase, and having reflected on our successes and challenges, it is even more determined to do whatever it takes to fulfill its mission of providing the highest quality of education to all Dominicans, Mr. Pollock added.     Dominica's development depends to a very large extent on the effectiveness of the Dominica State College to provide training and leadership. The burden of providing the trained human resource, which will transform Dominica's economy, rests squarely on the Dominica State College; the members of the Board of Governors of the College are very aware of that responsibility. With the indispensable help of the Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica and all its departments and divisions, particularly the Ministry of Education, the College will work very hard to meet the challenges ahead, Mr. Pollock further added.

Accreditation sought for Associate Degree at DSC By The Chronicle (Oct. 1/04)     The recently established Dominica State College (DSC) Associate Degree programme has come under a lot of criticism lately by members of the public and politicians, who claim that the college has not received any accreditation to date.     At last week's sitting of Parliament, the former Minister of Education, Ronald Green challenged current Education Minister, Vince Henderson to make available to the House of Assembly the names of the institutions from which the Associate Degree of the college had received accreditation and the date on which such accreditation, had been granted.     Before answering the question, Henderson explained that the creation of the Dominica State College was one of the most significant developments that this country has seen since independence. Established in 2002, the college has provided opportunities for thousands of Dominicans to pursue higher education.     He also recognised Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit for leading the process and seeing the establishment of the DSC.     Henderson continued by stating that, to date, at the programme level, the Nursing programme is accredited by the Caribbean Nursing Body while the Teacher Education Certificate is accredited by the University of the West Indies. However as an institution, the DSC has not received accreditation from any accrediting body.     He said questions such as what is accreditation, what types are there, and what is needed to acquire accreditations are academic in nature, but they also have legal, political and financial implications for everyone. “The administration of the Dominica State College and the Ministry of Education are addressing those issues as we speak,” he said.     Accreditation is a process in which a programme of study, or an institution, is assessed for its standards and given official recognition by some other agency or government. At the programme level, accreditation is concerned with the quality of a specific course or programme of study. At the college level, accreditation is concerned with the evaluation of the entire institution for quality and standards.     Because of the lengthy process of achieving institutional accreditation, regardless of who accredits, the 2000 Final Report on the Re-development of the Dominica State College states that the “College will need to immediately seek partnerships through articulation agreements with United Kingdom and North American colleagues and universities and other agencies”.     The government and the administration at the DSC have already been discussing with several regional and international colleagues and universities how to create those relationships referred to as articulation agreements. “We recognize their importance in the growth and quality assurance of our State College. We have already established some articulation agreements and others are in the process,” Henderson said, adding “but those articulation agreements simply allow individual institutions to accept our college credits and admit our students without the complicated issues of transit evaluation. Articulation agreements are case by case with individual colleges and universities”.     Accreditation, on the other hand, allows all or most cooperating institutions to accept students' credit and admit these students with no questions asked, so long as they recognise the ‘Accrediting Body’, the institution that gives the accreditation.     Henderson said the institutional accreditation process for institutions like the Dominica Stage College is intended to strengthen and sustain the quality and integrity of those education institutions, making it worthy of public confidence, and he pledged his Ministry's support to achieve these goals.     Prior to 1996, there was no serious and formal discussion about accreditation in the region.     Today, none of the colleges of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is accredited by any national or outside agency or body as far as the term ‘accreditation’ was defined.     Internationally, it is common practise that every national (state-owned) college or university claims its own accreditation. In Canada, the appropriate government ministry responsible for education provides ‘oversight’ to ensure quality and standards.     In the Caribbean, the OECS Colleges and the University of the West Indies are presently considering the creation of National Accreditation Agencies for each member state, which would ultimately lead to the formation of a Regional Accreditation Agency.     The Dominica State College is part of this initiative, at the insistence of the Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit and Chief Education Officer Steve Hyacinth.

Official Opening of State College By Johnson JohnRose, The Sun (April 21/03)     A date has been set for the official opening of the Dominica State College, the Sun can reveal.     The official opening is set for July 25th, almost one year after the local tertiary institution began operations, Education Minister Roosevelt Skerritt has confirmed.     "The college staff is working on (finalising) the programme (but) the opening is on July 25th," Skerritt told the Sun.     The college began operations in September 2002. College officials wanted to host the official opening in January 2003, but there were some difficulties with the intended date, stated Skerrit. A date in March was also considered but that too, proved problematic.     "We wanted it in March but the Prime Minister was unavailable and we really want the Prime Minister to be there. Also some of the guest speakers who we had identified couldn't make it," the education minister said.     The college was beset by problems in the early days with differences between the initiators and officials of the ministry of education threatening to stymie its development. The education ministry officials complained that they were being kept in the dark while the management committee accused the officials of being lazy.     There was also questions about fees and uniforms and the opening of the college.     However, Skerritt said those problems were behind them and college was set to become "one of the biggest achievements in Dominica since independence."     "There were teething problems," Skerritt admitted, "but those things have been dealt with. As you go along you will find there are problems to be addressed. We were not surprised at the teething problems," the minister told the Sun.     He said that in the six months since the college a lot more Dominicans have had the opportunity to further their education, particularly in nursing and education.     For example, stated the minister, a pre-nursing programme has been introduced to allow people who fall short of the requirements the enter the nursing programme an opportunity to qualify.     "We never had a pre-nursing programme and now have 53 people in the pre-nursing programme," he said, adding that Dominica had to seek to deal with the problems posed by the recruitment of its nurses by the metropolitan countries.     In addition, he said, there were over 75 people in the certificate in primary education programme in comparison to an average of 25 before the opening of the college.     The ministers said that under the Stabex programme, EC$1.6 million was set aside for training in tourism and hospitality, including certificate and associate degree programmes.     The college will pilot core curricula being developed by the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) for Caribbean tertiary institutions offering tourism/hospitality at the associate degree level, the Sun was told.     The CTO, through the Caribbean Tourism Human Resource Council, contracted two consultants last year to develop the core curricula and a final report is due any time now, with piloting scheduled in September.     "Dominica is very carefully following the activities that we are engaged in in the council, said Bonita Morgan, CTO's director of human resources.     "They are developing their state college to be able to offer tourism and hospitality programmes at the associate degree level so when they heard that we were engaged in this activity of reviewing, revising and developing core curricula for this programme they said they would put their programme on hold so that they can benefit from the outputs of our programme.     "So they have been involved from the very start in our discussions about this revised curriculum for this associate degree programme and they have telegraphed very early that they want to be one of the pilot institutions that implements the programme in September 2003," stated Morgan.

New State College enrolls over one thousand students By Germaine Royer, Cakafete News (Sep. 18/02)     The Dominica State College (DSC) an educational institution established in April 2002 under an Act of Parliament has now opened its doors to more than one thousand students, and according to Dominica’s Minister of Education Roosevelt Skerrit, Dominicans are now ready to take advantage of tertiary education now that it is available here on the Island.     Skerrit said that over two thousand Dominicans have applied for the school year 2002/2003 and the College has accepted approximately one thousand, one hundred students. He said that this has been an increase from the mere two hundred and fifty to three hundred students that have been accepted annually at the Clifton Dupigny College and that persons who left school in the eighties and seventies are now willing and able to take advantage of tertiary education now that it is available here in Dominica.     The DSC is the result of the amalgamating of the Clifton Dupigny College, the Nursing School and other institutions of higher education here into one institution aimed to create an educated citizenry and the manpower resources for Dominica’s development, a brochure published by the DSC stated. The brochure further added that the goal of the DSC is to emphasize the future development of fundamental and Core College levels skills and an increased understanding of their social and environmental needs.     To look over the operations of the new institution will be a Board of Governors appointed by the Government of Dominica. The General Manager of the National Commercial Bank Vance Leblanc is the Chairman, Dr. Bernard Yankey, first President. Other members are Steve Hyacinth, Dr. Colmore Christian, Oliver Grell and Jean Jacobs. The government student representative is Leslie Laudat, Roslyn Burnett, Academic Staff Representative, and Senior Administrative Staff Representative is Merril Matthew. The bargaining agent is the Public Service Union (PSU) and represented by Thomas Letang. The private sector representative is made up of several people in the name of Jemmer Lawrence of the DAIC, Dr. William Riviere of the Dominica Bar Association, Arcroid Birmingham of the Dominica Employers Federation and Patrick Henderson represents Non Government Organisation (NGO) community.