This paper examines the philosophical underpinnings of the call for reforming the financing of higher education from the perspective of higher education administrators, politicians, and students. It argues that there are three underpinnings associated with the call: the entrepreneurial thrust, as well as the financing, and the resource allocation underpinnings. It then uses the experiences of some universities to point out challenges faced by Caribbean higher education institutions in their quest to reform. It also suggests actions that may be taken to combat the challenges.

This paper presents an overview of the model of quality assurance at The University of the West Indies (UWI) as developed by the Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies (OBUS). “Fitness for purpose” is the definition of quality that informs the articulation and operationalization of the UWI model, and the authors engage in a critical examination of the processes involved. These processes include self-assessment, peer review, and site visits, and the follow-up of the recommendations of review reports.

Higher education has been positioned as an important contributor to development in low-income countries in the context of the knowledge economy. This paper assesses the potential for building sustainable higher education systems that can contribute to development in low-income countries. The premise of this paper is that developing countries cannot be researched in isolation. The intensification of higher education relationships across national borders means that developments

This article examines the role of facilities management in ensuring the sustainability of higher education institutions, with particular reference to ecological sustainable development (ESD). It describes an ESD model, developed by the Tertiary Education Facilities Management Association, for incorporating sustainability into facilities management, and recommends the adoption of such a model by Caribbean higher education institutions.

The industrial world has moved away from its exclusive emphasis on the manufacture of goods and services to an era of knowledge creation and application of information. This paper therefore posits that if the objective of higher education is to effectively and efficiently transfer the competencies, atitudes, and behaviour required for citizens to secure employment and satisfy the needs or demands of industry, then higher education has a role in the fostering of innovation.

The rapid dissemination of digital technology has fundamentally changed our students in the Caribbean. Some of these students have spent their lives surrounded by computers, video games, digital cameras, text messaging, and cell phones. In contrast, these students are enrolled in programmes offered by universities in the Caribbean which are taught and managed by individuals who did not experience the pervasive digital technology culture when they were growing up, as is the norm for these students.

According to the Global Education Digest 2009 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics [UIS], 2009), the number of students pursuing tertiary education globally has skyrocketed over the past 37 years, from 28.6 million in 1970 to 159.5 million in 2008. Today, there is widespread concern in the Caribbean region about the issue of gender and achievement in education in general, and higher education in particular. This paper explores this phenomenon regionally and globally, providing a critical analysis of explanations and theorizing that have emerged to understand this situation in both contexts.

The mission of ACHEA is to “promote the highest professional and ethical standards and the continuing development of the management capacity among those who have administrative and managerial responsibilities in higher education in the Caribbean by enhancing the skills of individual members through the provision of training and development programmes and opportunities for effective networking” (http://sta.uwi.edu/ACHEA/).

This double issue of the Journal of Education and Development in The Caribbean (JEDIC) honours Jossett Lewis‐Smikle, lecturer in Literacy Studies in the School of Education, University of the West Indies, Mona, who passed away in March 2013. Many in our university community and beyond will know of her unstinting commitment to literacy achievement in Jamaica through her teaching, research, curriculum development and community work.

For Cuban (1992), fundamental reforms are those which permanently transform, alter, or completely overhaul the educational process, and are not mere renovations. Many changes have to take place for these reforms to materialize. Fullan (1993) describes educational change as “an overlapping series of dynamically complex phenomena” (p. 21) that are uncontrollable in many respects. Change is not something that can be forced or mandated, he argues.