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DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS AND PHILOSOPHY
INCOME GENERATION
Summer School There was a reduction in the number of courses offered in Summer School 2023; however, the Department still realised a profit from the venture while assisting students, especially finalising students, for whom Summer School is critical. Short Course The English Language Section developed a 7-week conversational English course for offering to the international company Grid Engineering, based on the Mona Campus, beginning in May 2023. Given that the short conversational course, called “Multifaceted Jamaica”, was for a small group (costing J$136,850.00), a very small profit was earned for sharing among campus entities. English Language Proficiency Test Unit (ELPTU) The ELPTU, with responsibility for placing students in Academic Literacies courses via a diagnosis of their English language reading and writing competencies, real- ised a slight increase in income over the miniscule earnings of the COVID years. The test fee was USD24, and there were four (4) sittings of the ELPT: August 5, September 2 and December 2, 2022, and April 21, 2023. A total of 920 candidates were tested at Mona and at the Western Jamaica Campus. Of this number, 455 candidates attained Level 1 and 465 candidates attained Level 2. The Jamaican Language Unit/M.A. English Language The M.A. in the English Language (M.A. EL) is a self-financing programme run by the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU). It was set up circa 2005 to fund the activities of the JLU and to fill a gap in the content knowledge of teachers of English at the secondary and tertiary levels. That gap has not yet been filled, which signals that there is still a need for the M.A. EL. The programme has remained financially viable for most of its existence, except for a few instances when changes in campus policies/practices threatened the programme’s financial health. Over the past four (4) years, the programme has registered a year- end surplus every year – even in the year when the number of incoming students dipped from the usual 15–20 to nine (9) as a result of the financial uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The JLU responded to the campus’ financial challenges by cutting one of its Technical Assistants in March 2022 and by reducing the duties and salary of the remaining Technical Assistant by 25%. These actions severely impacted the ability of the unit
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