Barbados Community College looking to attract more males

At least one tertiary level institution in this island is looking at how it can increase the number of males who enrol at their facility.

 

Acting Registrar of the Barbados Community College (BCC), Roger Worrell said that this became one of their goals because he was concerned that for every male student who applies to the BCC, you have about three females and you do not want to have a situation where only females or predominately females are applying to these tertiary level institutions to further their education and career prospects while the males continue to fall by the wayside.

 

“We can’t have a society where the females are seeking tertiary education and the males are falling by the wayside, you know. So one of the things is that I would like to encourage more males to apply to the Community College and to get serious about their education because you know both males and females are necessary to take the country forward and you can’t have this disjointed type of development where just females are progressing and males are falling back so to speak.”

 

Another reason why the College is focusing their efforts on increasing their male enrolment is because they recognize that pursuing an education helps to keep young minds focused on something productive, thereby lessening the amount of time that they have idle and by extension preventing them from getting involved in negative activities.

 

“They need to get a little bit more focused and I think that education is a tool that can help to pull them up by their bootstraps so to speak. You know persons who are not in an (educational) institution or if they are not working, then they tend to find themselves caught up with other deviance or deviant activity. So I would encourage more males to think about their future and to think about a career, a skill and to take advantage of the opportunities that are provided by the Barbados Community College because as I said we have a lot of variation.”

 

Speaking with  The Barbados Advocate in his office recently, Worrell stated that it is with this in mind that young men should seriously consider finding a area that interests them and then applying to a tertiary level institution to pursue a course in that field.

 

One of the ways in which the administration is seeking to increase the number of male applicants at the BCC is to see how they can diversify their programme offerings in order to attract more male students.

 

“So this is why we have to look at diversifying our programmes and making education more attractive to young males because what a female may be attracted to may not be so attractive to a male student. So by offering more –  and we would be doing some research into what guys want to do and offer those programmes – to attract those young gentlemen.”