COLLEGE &#038; MEDICAL SCHOOL TO SHARE LAND, EDUCATION

Two tertiary educational institutions in Anguilla are coming together in a linkage that will benefit each other and, in the final analysis, the people of the island. They are the Anguilla Community College, headed by Professor Delroy Louden, and St. James School of Medicine, whose President and CEO is Dr. KallolGuha.

L-R: Dr Louden, Dr. Guha, Dr. Richardson-Lake, Orris Proctor, Vanburn Brooks and Dr. Iliou (Dean at Saint James)

“I think the relationship is one that can only benefit the people of Anguilla in terms of training, research, health service delivery and education,” Professor Louden told The Anguillian in an interview.

“We have 11.97 acres of land in Long Path, given to us by the Government of Anguilla, which we are appreciative of, and we want to make two-and-a-half-acres available to the Saint James School of Medicine,” Professor Louden continued. “The Board of Governors of the Anguilla Community College is right now considering a Memorandum of Understanding on the terms on which that land will be made available.

“We think it is a win-win situation for Sixth Form students coming over next year to the Community College and we think it can only be a growth facility. We also think that students will find career opportunities, other than medicine, such as bio-chemical sciences, genetics and biological sciences. There will be a wide variety of opportunities for our young people to be trained and meet the needs of this growing island.”

Dr. Louden was asked how close the college, now housed in the Rogers’ Building at George Hill, was to building its own campus in the Farrington/Sandy Hill area. “The Board of Governors is in the final stage of negotiations with the Infrastructure Committee, the Social Security Board and several other agencies with respect to commencing construction at the main site,” he disclosed.“We hope that by the end of October to have an answer for construction. Remember, the Sixth Form students are waiting to come over so we have to prepare ourselves.

“These are exciting times for Anguilla. We understand that these are also difficult times for the people of the island but, nonetheless, we are moving forward in providing training opportunities in a wide range of areas including hospitality, business and financial services. As I have said, our key principle is coordination and linkages so we are working with the Financial Services Commission, the Anguilla Chamber of Commerce and the Hotel and Tourism Association to develop programmes that meet the needs of a growing Anguillian population.
“We are not leaving anyone out, and we are providing general education through our Continuing and Adult Education [Programme] including weekend classes. We are excited about the opportunity for the island.”

Professor Louden was asked for his views about the possibility that Anguilla could become a destination for higher education. “Very much so,” he replied. “I am hoping that the Anguilla Community College will work very closely with the local physicians, like Dr. Lowell Hughes, and so on, the Medical School and other health professions, to attract a new breed of people to Anguilla, – people who are interested in health tourism and who can get some of their health-care needs met as we improve the quality of the health-care we deliver to the population as a whole. Once we do that, then I think we would find ourselves being a competitive part of the region.”

Speaking at the official opening of the Saint James School of Medicine on Friday, August 12, President KallolGuha said his medicalschool had entered into very serious discussions with the Anguilla Community College. “Under the umbrellaof this institution we intend to expand our research programme,” he stated. “We noticed that the Community College has significant expertise in the area of research which we would like to explore and we have already touched base with the administration of the Community College.”

Dr. Guha said he was of the view that the Community College had the potential of offering some pre-medical or pre-clinical programmes. “If that happens, then we will be willing to open up a dialogue with that institution [so] that its graduates can be absorbed into the MD programme at Saint James,” he added.“The third component is that we are also discussing…expanding our physical facilities under the Community College programme. To that effect, there has been some preliminary discussion with Dr. Louden and his team and we intend to continue that discussion in the future.”