UWI unveils multi-year Mona and Western Jamaica campus upgrade without tuition rises

GREEN ISLAND, Hanover — The University of the West Indies has set out an extensive building and upgrade programme for its Mona and Western Jamaica campuses, to be carried out across the next three to four years.

Near-term priorities include a 50-bed hospital in western Jamaica, plus a new School of Engineering and a central campus hub on the Mona grounds.

“The truth is that Mona is on a transformational path, and what we’re seeing is that we are reviving the systems and procedures and processes about how we do things at our Mona campus. We are talking about modernising the campus, not only in terms of infrastructure work, but in terms of our governance, in terms of our academic programmes, and also in terms of the processes and systems that we do,” stated The UWI, Mona principal, Professor Densil Williams.

Williams outlined the proposals to the Jamaica Observer after speaking at the first Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Higher Education Leadership Conference 2026, staged last Thursday at Princess Grand Hotels and Resorts in Green Island, Hanover. He also sketched the Western Jamaica campus agenda.

“We have great plans for our Western Jamaica campus as well, where we’re going to be building out a proper global health facility. We’re going to be looking at a 50-bed hospital over there, and we’re going to look at a teaching and research complex for medical education in western Jamaica…We’re going to overhaul the current site of the Western Jamaica campus to look at business and management education and also short and professional courses as well,” said Williams, who stressed that the initiatives are long-range and will advance “step by step”.

He said groundbreaking on the Mona works is due before this calendar year closes, with finishing expected in 18 to 24 months. The Western Jamaica scheme is to begin roughly two years after that.

Williams underlined a phased risk-management method so each stage stays within the university’s means.

“We risk manage them, we build, we see how they operate, we look at the returns, and then we move to the next phase,” he explained.

No figure was given for the Western Jamaica campus works. Mona’s package is put at about US$30 million, and the university says learners will not be charged for that outlay.

“All our capital projects are not going to touch on our existing operational budget at the campus. We’re looking at new revenue streams to support these projects, so it will require us to actually get into the international space and get international students etc to come and finance those projects as well,” explained Williams.

He added that students stand to gain further “because they will have more modern facilities and they will not be asked to pay any significant amount in terms of increased tuition for these, because we’re diversifying our revenue stream to pay for these projects. So we’re looking at commercial operations, international students, etc to pay for these.”

Williams said the push matters because Mona, the regional university’s founding campus established in 1948, now needs a major refresh.

“We just have to modernise our facilities, and that’s a key driver. Our facilities are, in some cases, 30-40 years old, and they don’t really have the kind of modernity to deal with the kind of technological revolution that we’re dealing with — to deal with AI and those kinds of things. Our labs need upgrading, etc, and so we have to look at the overall infrastructure overhaul that is supporting the campus,” Williams insisted.

Competition from foreign universities operating in Jamaica also shaped the thinking, he said.

“The truth is that we’re not resting on our laurels. The education industry has become much more competitive, and as a result of that, we have to now actually forecast what the future will look like, and we have to lead the future. I mean, let’s make no mistakes about it, UWI is still the number one recognised university in the Caribbean, and also within the top 1.5 per cent of the best universities globally. We have that reputation; we have to use it. We have to leverage that reputation,” said Williams.

The three-day gathering, which closed last Friday, ran under the theme ‘Transformational Leadership for Institutional Excellence and Sector Renewal’. It convened heads of Jamaica’s publicly financed tertiary institutions, board chairs, sector agency representatives, and ministry officials to weigh how to strengthen leadership, tighten governance, lift student outcomes, advance quality assurance, and ready the sector for shifting national and global demands.

Reflecting on the meeting, Williams said it filled a gap for the tertiary system.

“Initially, when we thought about it, we said that we have never really had a coming together of the higher education sector just talking about what the challenges are, how we finance ourselves, how we look at future sustainability and stuff.

“I really want to thank the Ministry of Education for hosting this particular conference because what it has done is to bring all the stakeholders together over a three-day period, where we can discuss and we can dialogue about the future of higher education and what are the lessons we can learn from each other to make sure that we build a financially sustainable sector and we also build a resilient sector for the future. So I think these conversations are extremely important, and I look forward to further dialogue with our colleagues within the higher education sector,” added the principal.