Caribbean Tertiary Institutions and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of schools across the Caribbean, including tertiary institutions. Colleges and universities turned to digital solutions and modified their pedagogy in order to sustain continuity of learning. Other adaptations like flexible payment schemes were made to allow students to stay enrolled. The University of West Indies CCEP and CLRI and the IDB co-hosted a conversation titled “Caribbean Tertiary Institutions and the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” which sought to explore how tertiary institutions were coping with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The conversation focused on the most prominent challenges and what measures the institutions had taken to deal with them, what they felt they had done well in adapting, and how sustainable they deemed those measures in supporting their operations in the medium to long term. A follow-up meeting was held with several students from UWI to further explore how they had been impacted. This publication shares the responses to these questions, offers lessons learned and outlines next steps for the Caribbean Tertiary Institutions and the IDB.