The University of the West Indies (UWT) is supported by 15 countries of the English-speaking Caribbean and is the only regional university. UWI delivers its programmes on the three campuses, by distance education techniques and, to a growing extent, through regional Tertiary Level Institutions (TLIs). This latter mode of delivery was encouraged by a major internal study of the university's operations that recommended that the tertiary colleges should become close partners of the university.

In 1996 the University of the West Indies (UWI) began to implement the recommendations of a major internal study of its structures, among which was the development of a system of quality assurance. The Office of the Board for Undergraduate Studies (OBUS) has the responsibility for developing and implementing this system on behalf of the Board for Undergraduate Studies (BUS).

Science Applied in the Caribbean, edited by Judith Reay and John Steward, Macmillan, London and Basingstoke, 1988, 362 pages. The editors' intent was to provide material and information that would better relate school science to current applications of science in the Caribbean. The editors were primarily concerned with those 15 to 18 years old who are pursuing courses preparing them for the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) General Level Examinations. The 26 articles on a range of topics are by West Indian scientists from around the region.

The study sought to find out the nature of students' perceptions of the democratization of five aspects of their science lessons and to establish if there were significant gender differences in their perceptions. Data were collected from 250 science students in grades 10 (N=126) and 11 (N=124), comprising 138 boys and 112 girls who volunteered from six traditional high schools in rural and urban areas of Jamaica.