UWI launches plan to revolutionise finances
Published:Friday | July 16, 2021 | 12:12 AMJudana Murphy/Gleaner Writer
The University of the West Indies (UWI) has launched ‘Operation Revenue Revolution 75 +’ as it seeks to address challenges to its financial sustainability.
Vice-Chancellor Hilary Beckles said the university will be shifting from its decades-old practice of deficit financing to a balanced-budget approach.
Across the five campuses, The UWI has a yearly operational expenditure of just over US$300 million, with a shortfall of US$30 million to US$40 million.
The UWI will also be developing an entrepreneurial dimension, which is set out to be aggressively commercial, in order to reduce its dependence on the public purse.
Developing the business aspect of the institution will create a hybrid university over the next five years, he said.
“On the one hand, it is a public university dedicated to the public good, but on the other hand, it must have a strong commercial, entrepreneurial, and corporate dimension in pursuit of its own revenue generation for self-development,” Beckles said during Thursday’s post-executive management retreat media briefing.
The vice-chancellor said that the regional university could not continue to grow solely within its domestic financial base.
The second half of its 10-year strategic plan, Operation Revenue Revolution 75 +, sees its first target as the 75th anniversary of the university in 2023 and looking beyond.
The breakdown of the financial model will see 50 per cent revenue from The UWI’s contributing Caribbean governments and the remainder from its entrepreneurial actions.
This includes 20 per cent regional student fees, 10 per cent international student fees, 10 per cent business activity, and five per cent each for private-sector investment and endowment.
“All of the campuses are going to be called upon, and principals are going to be held accountable for developing these commercial, entrepreneurial projects on the campuses to bring revenue into their treasuries so they can detach themselves as far as possible from the volatility and the fluctuations in public funding,” Beckles remarked.
Further, the projected launch in 2022 of the UWI Global Campus, building on the footprint of the existing Open Campus, will drive international students into the UWI system. This will be a self-financing, online, and for-profit campus.
The Global Campus is expected to deeply impact the traditional operations and financial trajectory of the university.
The UWI will also be seeking to revamp the regional and global alumni giving operations.