To compete globally and locally, countries need to produce, in increasing numbers, young people who possess the skills suited for a technology and service-driven age. As the Cayman Islands bears testimony, the Caribbean region has a service-dominated future.
This requires the delivery of skills and forms of education which differ in important ways from those of the past. Now that the broader Caribbean has been forced to move away from employment dependency in preference-led agriculture to newer industries and sectors, there has to be a complete mind-change about the nature of government and the role of the public sector as an enabler. Similarly, this requires a rethinking of the private sector’s educational needs.
This brings us to the role of the Social Sciences in making learning a mind-opening and life-enhancing experience. How can the teaching-learning enterprise in the Social Sciences, at the university level, be definitive in producing suitably qualified individuals to help make the private sector competitive and the functions of government efficient?
At the University College of the Cayman Islands, emphasis is placed on producing roundly and soundly educated individuals- and the Social Sciences play a central role in this process.
The Social Science disciplines offered at UCCI are Geography, Psychology, Political Science, Sociology and History. These fields examine the different dimensions of the human being and of society.
They address concepts such as nations, groups, institutions, families, economic markets, specific sorts of human action and behaviors, political systems and political behaviour, social rules and processes. Put differently, the Social Sciences explain and investigate those individual and communal human actions which have historical or social significance, and historical and social events and structures.
The Social Sciences, perhaps more than any other disciplines, help students arrive at a more sophisticated defense of their own views, and even move them beyond their previously cherished ideas and intellectual frameworks.
For example, let us take the study of History, which, interestingly, is a critical foundation for all the Social Sciences. In studying this discipline, it is not merely dates and events and their interpretation which are examined.
Even when this is done, it is for guiding students toward a deep recognition of complexity and ambiguity, having come face to face with the record, not only of human civilization, but also of human failure, cruelty and barbarity. In the end, the study of history, as do the other Social Sciences, and the study of Literature and Criminology, provides a textured, substantive framework for understanding the human condition and grappling with moral questions and problems.
The requirement to analyze and interpret History provides the essential context for evaluating contemporary institutions, politics and cultures.
Indeed, the sharpening of intelligence is crucial in producing the global citizen, the critical thinker – the educated person, so desperately needed for continually evolving societies. The Social Sciences, it is being strongly argued, because of the very nature of these subjects, are definitive in shaping the critical mind. In the end, the critical thinker is that person who understands that important issues often require extended thought, research and struggle, and that significant change requires patience and hard work. That person recognizes the need to struggle with confusion and unsettled questions over time, in order to achieve deeper understanding, insight, and self-discipline—themselves the core elements of a healthy, creative society.
So the study of the Social Sciences, especially at UCCI, is very valuable, especially in the Caymanian context, as it is a part of the Caribbean, having been shaped by similar historical forces, yet, to some extent, as a leading financial center, being distinct from the region.
These disciplines, apart from preparing students for such diverse fields as the media, banking ,government, the police force, law, education, business and research, are invaluable in making sense of the contemporary world, which is dominated by information and communication but which requires the intellectual tools necessary to make sense of complex and challenging situations.
