MANAGING DIRECTOR of West Indies Alumina Company (Windalco) Michael Collins has donated J$1 million to the Northern Caribbean University (NCU).
President of NCU, Dr. Herbert Thompson, made the announcement following Mr. Collin's presentation to the hundreds of persons who turned out at the university's main campus for this year's Charter Day celebrations.
Charter Day, which is essentially the institution's birthday, marks the day six years ago, when the institution received its charter to operate as a university, and it also marks the institution's 86 years of existence.
The donation will go to the university's endowment fund, earmarked for the institution's capital development, and also assists in providing scholarships for students.
Mr. Collins looked at the transformation of his own country, Ireland, from being an impoverished nation in the 1940s to a vibrant economic entity in the 1980s and 1990s, and he cited education as the single most important factor which pulled the previously destitute nation from dire poverty.
Education, he said, caused a major turnaround which has now placed Ireland, one of the British Isles, among the leading economically viable nations on the globe. Mr. Collin, who has lived in Jamaica for 25 years, believes that "Jamaica will succeed with education."
