UTech tackling social demise via values and attitudes course

The University of Technology (UTech) graduated its first cohort of 38 ‘values and attitudes ambassadors’ on Saturday August 16, to tackle social demise, morality, crime, violence and low productivity. The short course, titled ‘University Values and Attitudes Course’ (UVAC), is an element of the ‘Respect Agenda’ campaign, the successor programme to the National Values and Attitudes Programme which operated under the Office of the Prime Minister.

The National Values and Attitudes Programme resulted from a study conducted by the Planning Institute of Jamaica and funded by the United Nations Development Programme. That study, after two years of research, concluded that Jamaica’s social and economic problems can all be traced to the values and attitudes of its people.

The UVAC is a short 10-unit course formally training students in seven core values: (1) respect, (2) self-discipline, (3) honesty/integrity, (4) obedience to rules in a civil and law-abiding society, (5) education and hard work, (6) monogamy/good family relationship, and (7) altruism/selflessness. Currently, the course is voluntary and was pilot-tested in the Faculty of the Built Environment.

According to a media release, developers of the course believe that these core values will help to create a new generation of Jamaicans who will be more productive, civil, and more law-abiding. They feel that this will help to address the nation’s labour productivity problem, which has been declining for decades and contributing to the lack of global competitiveness.

At the presentation ceremony, Dean Laurence Neufville said that he was pleased that so many students voluntarily completed the course, and was hopeful that the other faculties would implement the course. President Dr Kevin Brown applauded the pilot programme and hinted that he is considering how UVAC could be incorporated into the community service programme, which all students will need to complete in other to graduate.

Rev Ronald Thwaites, who was the guest speaker, said that this development at UTech was epic for the education system. He said that good values and attitudes form the foundation of a good character. It was noted that Thwaites had beaen working with UTech for quite a while in making this pilot a reality. The pilot started under the previous dean, Prof Garfield Young.

UVAC was implemented by Reginald Budhan, national coordinator for the Respect Agenda campaign. The presentation ceremony was chaired by senior lecturer Lebert Langley.He said that the mandate of the ambassadors is to promote these core values in their homes, workplaces, communities, and the wider society. The students, in their endorsement of UVAC, requested that it be rolled out to the rest of the student body and throughout the country.