Urban Education

It's funny because every time I hear someone speak about The University of The West Indies, it's always a "steups" or a "sigh, that place yes!" The University of the West Indies St Augustine campus is one of three Campuses around the Caribbean. This campus was established in 1960, and the Trinidad and Tobago nationals have the privilege of enjoying free education at all levels (which is amazing by the way.) The university serves 18 English speaking countries and the aim of the university was to help "unlock the potential for economic and cultural growth" in the West Indies, thus allowing for improved regional autonomy.

In this post, I use UWI as a platform to speak about Urban Education, or the education system on the whole, as although the education at the university is free, many individuals do not reach that level in education. In a study done by University of Michigan, urban schools tend to at a disadvantage especially to the children that are attending the schools. Inequalities in education exist from the textbooks provided to the teacher qualifications which in turn affects the quality of education that inner-city children receive. People are being segregated by social class and the impoverished population is not getting the same educational opportunities as their more privileged counterparts.

Providing education that is both high in quality and fair to all is one of the greatest challenges facing cities today. This concentration prepares students for careers in educational policy and practice. One major problem with this is that low-income urban parents and families tend to not to see education as being extremely important and do not play an active role in helping their children acquire an education. An education takes away from the roles and responsibilities youths have to fulfil at home.

So while education is free in Trinidad and Tobago, many people do not get to that level.