The Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Professor the Hon. Rex Nettleford addressed the General Conference of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) at Queen's University Belfast on September 3. Speaking on the topic 'Are Universities losing their reputation as the home of Culture and does it Matter", Professor Nettleford drew on the experience of the UWI and the implications for the preparation of the university graduates to cope with the ever-changing world of the 21st century with all its contradictions, texture and chaotic challenges especially for developing countries.
He referred to the challenges of the communications technology revolution which has introduced rival agencies of cultural formation, what with the "galactic spheres transforming the entire planet into a global village". He warned against the possible negative outcomes of the WTO commodification of higher education with plans to "liberalise" Higher education as a "service". Many see the free access to the minds of different people in the name of "globalisation" as a threat to the deepening and heightening of specific cultural investigation, analysis and explanation which have long enriched the business of learning and the advancement of knowledge especially in a region like the Commonwealth Caribbean which has a textured history of cross-fertilisation between different cultures meeting over the past 500 years. This, the Professor insisted, has allowed West Indians to learn to live together rather than just side by side.