Twenty-seven years ago under the leadership of Phillip Cash, Queen's College (QC) launched its Centre for Further Education (CFE) with the goal of providing opportunities through part-time courses. These courses would be geared toward adults, to improve their qualifications with a view to furthering their career development, improving job prospects and finding personal challenges and enjoyment in acquiring new skills.
After Cash was appointed QC principal, the CFE did not have another fulltime dean. The programs continued with varied periods of high registration contrasted with times when the CFE program was somewhat inactive.
In January 2016, QC's board of governors made the decision to move the CFE program that had started in October 1989 back into active status and appointed Dr. Reginald Eldon as dean. He and his team were charged with spearheading the plan to build CFE into the fourth section of QC. Working with him are full-time staff members Latasha Strachan, director of academic affairs; Sherese Cunningham, registrar; and Katherine Beneby, program coordinator.
"We're looking at how we can work with people who are interested in moving from where they are in their life to where they need to be," said Dr. Eldon.
Four schools comprise the CFE program -- personal growth and personal development; educational; business and excellence leadership; and spiritual formation and ethical development.
"I'm a firm believer in you can grow from wherever you are. You are never too old to learn. Wherever you are, we can take you beyond that. Not everybody will learn the same way, or proceed with the same amount of speed, but what we promise is when you leave us, you will be further ahead than when you started."
The CFE program reopened its doors with the start of the academic school year in September offering classes for those persons wanting to sit the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test). Approximately 200 persons enrolled in the first course and sat their exam last week. The courses will be offered again in February 2017. Specific classes that targeted younger students, such as karate and ballet, guitar lessons and critical thinking, had about another 100 people across the classes.
The upcoming personal growth and personal development school will offer courses including guitar lessons; adult swimming; French and Italian cooking; and language classes in French, Spanish and Creole classes.
"This is the school that's going to offer lots of new programs that you probably can't get anywhere else," said Dr. Eldon.
Through the educational school, they will seek to help young people who have either dropped out of high school or have never sat a standardized test, such as the SAT, Bahamas Junior Certificate (BJC) or Bahamas General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) exams. These courses will concentrate more on English and math.
The dean said the goal of the CFE is to help these students obtain the additional qualifications they need to become employable and to gain skills they need to get jobs.
"Rather than just talking about the unemployment, we want to make sure that they can get some skills that will help them to be employable. There are a lot of people doing this, but we also know that there are a lot of people that are still getting missed out."
Dr. Eldon said the center hopes to run the program in cooperation with community agents who would be willing sponsor young people who cannot afford to pay for the courses.
The business and excellence leadership school will team up with Barry University in Miami, Florida to run short-term courses in personal development. It will also team up Ken Tucker, managing consultant of The Gallup Organization. Tucker is a Bahamian who operates out of Washington, D.C., and who has authored a number of books. The CFE hopes he will conduct training events with them.
QC as a leadership school, and the CFE program is also connected with Stephen Covey, author of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People".
"QC is a leadership school and we teach the seven habits from our youngest class straight up to high school. Everybody goes through that training, and that includes everyone who works at QC, be they a janitress, accountant, teacher. So we will offer special seven habits training in that section for parents, young people and for business people."
The spiritual formation and ethical development school combines the work Dr. Eldon has done in the last eight years with the Centre for Leadership Education and Training [CLET], a theological school that trains people for ministry.
"One of the exciting parts about this is that we are going to launch a new training program with people who work in church youth ministry. This will augment and help people who have trained in the Ministry of Youth's official youth workers training course. The church is a peculiar organization, and we need a little bit of orientation towards church youth ministry -- looking at VBS [vacation bible school] programs, youth ministry camps... Sunday school. And in this course, we're also teaching programs like Old Testament, New Testament, worship and preaching. We're offering a class in grief recovery in January. We're excited," he said.
Courses start at $150 for short courses.
Short course participants will receive certificates. Long courses that entail a lot more study and research will offer their participants diplomas on completion. Dr. Eldon said they have had meetings with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology with a view to future accreditation.
CFE classes take place in a renovated building at the beginning of QC's drive on the northern side of the school's campus.
Through the CFE relaunch, QC's aim is to assist Bahamians through academic, professional and personal development courses. According to the CFE, local research has revealed that further education in The Bahamas has yet to become the norm among students who have finished high school. Compared to the United States, where more than 60 percent of students leaving high school immediately enroll in college, The Bahamas sees less than 30 percent of high school graduates pursuing further education of any kind.
While the program launched in September, Dr. Eldon said the CFE is expected to have more variety as far as course offerings with the January semester, including a photography class to train people to set up their own photography businesses. To date, the course that has been the most popular he said has been adult swimming. He said the class filled up first and they will have to run it again in January.
"We know that if you just take a course and get a certificate, chances are that can help you, chances are it doesn't, but we're big on the entrepreneurial side of this where we want to help people to better their lives. We're looking at how we can work with people who are interested in moving from where they are in their life to where they need to be. So we have people that will be able to coach and sit with them and help them to understand that these things take time, you have to work at this sequentially and developmentally in order to get to where you want to be."
According to QC principles, the advantages of pursuing further education are vast and multi-faceted.
"Queen's College CFE promises to offer individual commitment with a community focus. This is why we feel compelled to answer the questions, 'How can we reach more Bahamians? How can we empower more Bahamians?" said Andrea U. Gibson, QC's principal.
She said the school's motto "Henceforth" embodies the school's commitment and dedication to the infinite future of education, well beyond the kindergarten through grade 12 years. She said CFE will provide the opportunity for persons throughout the community to access lifelong learning.
Dr. Eldon credits Gibson with the CFE relaunch.
"This is basically because of her drive and push. I did not do as much as work as she did in getting this established, and this has been a dream of hers for years. She is the one that really pushed and gave the leadership and impetus. I kept saying it's too much work. How are we going to get the funds? How are we going to get this going? There are so many places offering continuing education, and she kept saying, 'No there's something distinctly different about this. We are going to offer something no one else is offering'," he said.
With a sizeable investment to launch CFE as its own, Dr. Eldon said the tertiary level education would be beneficial to people in the long run.
"QC has done very well at every level of performance in The Bahamas. This year we won most outstanding school from the Ministry of Education, and won the All Bahamas Merit Scholarship, and what we want is to bring that same level of excellence and ability into the tertiary level. Our vision is really big, and we hope that eventually this [CFE] will become an institution that will be just as well established as the rest of QC is," he said.
Dr. Eldon hopes to take
the program back to its glory days when it had as many as 500 students enrolled at one time.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
