“Websites such as Facebook, Twitter and You Tube,” Carmona, who was himself a graduate of the Mona, Jamaica and Cave Hill Barbados campuses, said on Thursday evening at the Matriculation ceremony of first year students at University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, “should not be used to harass, degrade and denigrate others with whom you have a dispute, or with whom you disagree.”
Some 5,000 new students, including one third of whom were post graduates, were matriculated at the UWI St Augustine Campus bringing the student population to 17,000 according to Campus Principal Professor, Clement Sankat.
In the feature address Carmona said that ICT was a tool of great benefit to students, but like any other tool, it can be abused. While technology was a tool to enhance their education, he said that some students under the cloak of anonymity were using the tool on the Internet through social media to bully other students. And this, he said, results in emotional psychological harm.
“Where have our manhood gone? Where have our womanhood gone? You must come out of the shadows, look the other person in the eye, and discuss your beef,” he advised as the students acknowledged his cautions with a round of applause.
“I ask of you, don’t add to this generation of cowards,” he said relating examples in the USA and in England where students, who were victims of cyber-bullying, committed suicide.
In a wide ranging address he called on Caribbean leaders to make a plug for students - particularly for students of the University of the West Indies — with the region’s local and regional airlines, to be given students airfare as is done in Europe and other parts of the world.
He also called on the university students to look out for each other, and not watch others stumble and fail, because they were not immune from the challenges of life.
On the issue of students airfares, Carmona said the airlines should make it affordable for students to go to Barbados, Jamaica, or one of the other islands for long weekends. During his stay at Mona Campus, he said he could not travel home on holidays, because the airfare was unaffordable.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Miranda La Rose
Quelle/Source: Trinidad News, 21.09.2013
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
