UWI Five Islands Campus launches software engineering degree with Chinese university partner

The University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus is set to launch a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering this August through a partnership with the Global Institute of Software Technology (GIST) in Suzhou, China, in a programme that will see students spend two years in Antigua and two years in China while earning degrees from both institutions.

Campus Principal Professor Justin Robinson announced the programme alongside a pipeline of new offerings that includes degrees in FinTech, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, and Law, signalling an aggressive expansion of the campus’s academic portfolio.

“We are very excited,” Robinson said of the software engineering programme, describing software engineering as “the function of a modern economy.”

Students completing the degree will also receive a paid internship in China, adding a practical employment dimension to the qualification.

A bachelor’s degree in financial technology, which Robinson said would be the first programme of its type within the UWI system, is currently moving through the approval process, as are graduate degrees in Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence.

Robinson framed these programmes as directly responsive to the needs of the modern Caribbean economy, emphasising that many are designed with entrepreneurship and self-employment in mind.

“You’re not going out and just looking for a job. This programme prepares you for some independence,” Robinson said.

The campus also holds the distinction of offering the only Master of Science in Managing Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases within the UWI system, a programme developed in response to what Robinson identified as a chronic NCD crisis across the Caribbean, where diabetes prevalence runs two to three times the global average and over a third of adults live with hypertension.

Robinson said the pace of programme development is intentional, noting that the campus aims to respond rapidly to market needs.

He acknowledged the pressure this has placed on academic staff but said the institution’s position as a newer campus gives it an agility that more established institutions do not have.

The programme expansion is part of a broader strategy the campus calls its revenue revolution, in which new academic offerings, particularly at the graduate level.