分类： education

On July 24, senior leadership from The University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus sat down for a high-stakes strategic meeting with a top official from Antigua’s government to align on next steps for growing their long-standing educational collaboration.

The visiting institutional delegation was led by Campus Principal Professor C. Justin Robinson, and included two other key senior administrators: Campus Registrar Dr. Camille Samuel and Campus Bursar Danielle Benjamin. They met face-to-face with Permanent Secretary Ena Dalso Henry, the top civil servant representing Antigua and Barbuda’s Ministry of Education.

According to official statements released by the university following the closed discussion, the talks centered on expanding and deepening the productive partnership between the regional higher education institution and the national government. This collaboration comes at a critical time for UWI Five Islands, which is in an active period of growth that includes expanding its catalog of academic programs and advancing major infrastructure development projects across its campus.

By the end of the meeting, Permanent Secretary Henry extended formal gratitude to Professor Robinson and his leadership team for the ongoing work the campus has carried out to serve students across Antigua and Barbuda. She also took the opportunity to publicly reaffirm the government’s continued commitment to the collaborative relationship that has existed between the Ministry of Education and the UWI campus for many years.

University representatives emphasized that the productive meeting underscores the institution’s unwavering dedication to maintaining close, coordinated work with the Antigua and Barbuda government. This joint effort is focused not only on strengthening the quality of higher education within the country’s borders but also on improving educational access and outcomes across the wider Caribbean sub-region, aligning with UWI’s long-standing mission as a regional public good.

The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), the regional governing body that oversees secondary and post-secondary credentialing across the Caribbean, has released comprehensive new details outlining a major overhaul of its School-Based Assessment (SBA) framework for two of its core certification programs: the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).

Under the newly restructured assessment system, all CSEC and CAPE subjects have been sorted into three distinct classification groups based on how internal school-based evaluation will be structured moving forward. The first group consists of subjects that will keep their existing SBA model unchanged, preserving the current balance of in-school assessment and external examinations. For the second group, the SBA component will be expanded significantly, and the separate Alternative Paper 032 — a previous alternative assessment option for private candidates and institutions unable to complete full SBA requirements — will be phased out entirely. The third and final group will eliminate traditional SBA altogether, relying exclusively on the Alternative Paper 032 to measure student competency.

To bring full transparency to these changes, CXC has published public classification tables that clearly label which subjects fall into each of the three categories. The council has also urged students, classroom teachers, school administrators, parents, and other education stakeholders to review the organization’s updated frequently asked questions (FAQ) resource, which offers a granular breakdown of how the reforms will affect different stakeholders, implementation timelines, and answers to common concerns.

In a statement accompanying the release of the new framework details, CXC emphasized that these sweeping reforms are not arbitrary changes, but a deliberate step aligned with the organization’s long-standing core mission. The reforms are designed to ensure that CXC-issued qualifications truly capture the full scope of a student’s knowledge, practical skills, and authentic academic achievement, all while upholding the strict standards of integrity and educational excellence that the regional examining body has built its reputation on over decades of operation.

A young culinary talent from Antigua and Barbuda has earned a coveted spot in one of the region’s most promising youth hospitality training programs, marking a key step forward for the 2026 iteration of the Taste of Wadadli Junior Chef Academy.

Justine Griffin, a student at Sir McChesney George Secondary School, has been officially introduced as the eighth participant selected for the academy. Over the coming five weeks, she will complete a structured culinary internship at the acclaimed Galley Bay Resort and Spa, where she will work directly under the mentorship of the resort’s experienced Executive Chef Guven Uyanik.

The internship period is scheduled to run from July 13 through August 21, giving Griffin more than a month of immersive, on-the-job learning in a fast-paced professional kitchen environment. During this time, she will not only refine her existing cooking techniques but also gain first-hand insight into kitchen operations, food safety standards, and customer service that can only be learned through hands-on practice, all while receiving guidance from seasoned culinary and hospitality professionals.

The program will wrap up with a high-stakes showcase of the participants’ newly honed skills: a public cook-off competition set to take place between August 25 and 28. This competitive event will be followed by an official closing ceremony on September 3, where achievements will be celebrated and awards will be presented.

At the end of the entire program, one standout participant will be crowned the academy’s Top Junior Chef. This title comes with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the winner will earn the right to represent Antigua and Barbuda at the 2027 Junior Lit’l Chef Camp hosted in the Turks and Caicos Islands. This international opportunity is made possible through a collaborative partnership between the academy’s organizers and the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association.

Program organizers have emphasized that the core mission of the Taste of Wadadli Junior Chef Academy extends far beyond a single cooking competition. The initiative was created specifically to identify and nurture emerging young culinary talent from local secondary schools, giving participating students access to structured practical training that is rarely available to young learners outside of post-secondary education. It also exposes students to the wide range of career pathways available in the thriving hospitality and tourism sector, a core pillar of Antigua and Barbuda’s national economy.

The 2026 edition of the Taste of Wadadli Junior Chef Academy is jointly presented by three supporting partners: the Antigua and Barbuda Hotels and Tourism Association, the Ted Isaac Family, and Global Ports Holding, which operates Antigua Cruise Port.

A promising young culinary talent from Antigua has taken the first major step toward her professional career through a targeted industry training initiative. Destiny George, a student at Ottos Comprehensive School, has officially started a 10-week culinary internship at the luxury Keyonna Beach Resort Antigua, placed through the highly anticipated Taste of Wadadli Junior Chef Academy 2026 program.

As the sixth young chef selected to be featured in this initiative, George will receive one-on-one mentorship throughout her placement from seasoned professional Chef Patrick Brown. Unlike traditional classroom learning, the internship is designed to immerse participants in the fast-paced environment of a commercial resort kitchen, giving George the chance to build practical, hands-on skills that cannot be learned from textbooks. Over the course of the placement, she will develop core culinary techniques alongside customer-centric hospitality expertise, laying a strong foundation for a future career in Antigua and Barbuda’s thriving tourism sector.

The structured program follows a clear timeline that builds from training to competitive evaluation: the in-resort internship runs from July 13 through August 21, after which all participating trainee chefs will advance to a high-stakes cook-off competition held between August 25 and 28. The entire initiative will wrap with a formal closing ceremony on September 3, where final awards and recognitions will be distributed to participants.

The top prize for the program offers a life-changing career opportunity for one outstanding trainee: the selected Top Junior Chef will earn the right to represent Antigua and Barbuda at the 2027 Junior Lit’l Chef Camp hosted in Turks and Caicos, opening doors to international networking, skill development, and industry exposure.

The Taste of Wadadli Junior Chef Academy is a collaborative effort between three key stakeholders invested in nurturing local talent: the Antigua and Barbuda Hotels and Tourism Association, the Ted Isaac Family, and Global Ports Holding, which is the operator of Antigua Cruise Port. The initiative reflects a growing commitment across Antigua’s tourism industry to train young local professionals and build a skilled, homegrown workforce for the country’s top economic sector.

Following a highly successful inaugural iteration held in the Caribbean, two leading higher education institutions — The University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus, based in Antigua and Barbuda, and Canada’s University of Toronto — are moving forward to turn their collaborative summer study abroad programme into a permanent annual offering.

Hosted across three weeks at UWI’s Five Islands Campus, the first edition of the programme centered on the specialized interdisciplinary course “Rethinking Crime, Law and Power in the Caribbean.” University representatives note that the programme marks a key step in reviving cross-institutional exchange opportunities between the two schools, with a formal memorandum of understanding (MOU) already structured to enable ongoing reciprocal exchanges of both students and faculty members for years to come.

This year’s inaugural cohort brought together a diverse group of learners pursuing studies across a wide range of fields, including pre-law, prison reform, criminology, public policy, computer science, and mathematics. Leading academics who facilitated the course say the hands-on, immersive experience pushed participants to re-examine long-held assumptions about deeply interconnected social issues shaping the Caribbean region: systemic race relations, structural poverty, patterns of criminal activity, and systemic dispossession of marginalized communities.

“All, if not the majority of our students, have profoundly changed the way that they think about the nature of race relations [and] the nature of poverty,” one senior academic involved in the programme shared.

Unlike traditional classroom-only courses, the programme blended traditional lectures and in-depth seminar discussions with immersive field trips across Antigua and Barbuda. Students visited sites including the island of Barbuda, Betty’s Hope — a historic former sugar plantation that offers key context for the region’s colonial history — the Dennis Bowers Rehabilitation Centre, and His Majesty’s Prison, giving learners first-hand insight into the criminal justice and social systems the course explored.

Programme organizers report that the experience left a lasting impact on all participants. Many students were so transformed by their time in Antigua and Barbuda that a group has already begun organizing an independent reunion trip scheduled for within the next two years.

Beyond the benefits for international students visiting the Caribbean, the cross-institutional collaboration also opens new doors for UWI Five Islands students to gain broader exposure to Canadian educational systems and social issues. As one UWI official explained, the small Caribbean nation’s geography, economy, and culture are all deeply shaped by global dynamics. Giving local students the chance to engage with perspectives from a country like Canada is a critical step in expanding their worldviews and knowledge bases.

The official added that University of Toronto’s robust, widely recognized criminology programme creates a strong foundation for deepened academic collaboration between the two institutions in coming years, opening doors for joint research, curriculum development, and additional exchange opportunities beyond the annual summer programme.