St. Vincent and the Grenadines will host the next annual conference and general meeting of the Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education (CANQATE) after the National Accreditation Board (NAB) of SVG formally accepted the invitation to host in 2020.

At the 2019 conference (October) in Grenada; Chairman of the NAB, Dr. Rosalind Ambrose, informed the gathering of about 200 delegates from the Caribbean, Canada and the United Kingdom, that the NAB of SVG was pleased to host the 17th edition of the CANQATE conference.

Senior Education Officer in the Accreditation Unit of the Ministry of Education, Descima Hamilton, also delivered a paper titled “Issues for Agencies and Higher Education Institutions: Preparedness of Senior Managers (SM) to maintain a culture of quality in post-secondary education”. The piece focused on the importance of the role of Senior Managers in fostering a culture of quality in post-secondary education.

The Vincentian contingent represented at CANQATE 2019 comprised of thirteen (13) persons from various institutions. These include the SVG Community College, the Trinity Medical Sciences University, The American University of St. Vincent, the Bethel Bible College of the Caribbean (St. Vincent campus), the Saint Teresa University and the SVG School of Continuing Education.

CANQATE works to promote capacity building among countries and institutions of higher education. The conferences also facilitate regional discourse on policy and research in the fields of quality assurance and quality enhancement; whilst engaging policy makers, researchers, evaluators, administrators and faculty in professional development.