Wednesday's graduation ceremony of the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT)-the first of two such events that UTT held this week-marked an interesting, exciting and historic development in the country's tertiary education thrust and in the propagation of the culture of the nation.
At Wednesday's ceremony, UTT graduated its first class in the Master of Arts degree in Carnival Studies, which gives UTT credit for being the first university to offer the programme as a discrete course of study. It is, of course, entirely appropriate that UTT should have designed and implemented a degree programme in Carnival Studies and that among the first graduates of the class should be some leading practitioners of various aspects of Carnival.
UTT must be commended for its Carnival Arts degree programme which has produced some outstanding graduates. Such a programme is long overdue in the country which has given the world three districtive art forms-calypso, steelband and mas.
This year's graduates include TUCO president Lutalo Masimba (Brother Resistance) and veteran Carnival judge and musicologist Merle Albino-de Coteau who are deeply involved in the annual festivities. No doubt the studies they have pursued over the past few years in this unique discipline will give new strength and purpose to what they already do.
Looking ahead, there is great potential for this new degree programme. Hopefully the courses are being structured to enable graduates to take on many of the big challenges of producing the annual "greatest show on earth". New skills, more enlightened approaches to the many dimensions of Carnival and institutional strengthening of the many agencies and interest groups contributing to the festival are needed.
It is appropriate that UTT, as the country's first national university, should have offered the course because of the centrality of Carnival in T&T's culture and life and the importance that T&T's Carnival has played in the development of similar festivals all over the world.
The Carnival would only be capable of growing and transforming to new heights if those who participate in it and manage various aspects of its development are knowledgeable about its origins and its impact, its limitations and its possibilities.
Given the fact that UTT has gone out of its way to associate itself with innovation and entrepreneurship, one of the ways in which UTT can distinguish both the university and the programme is by exploring the business of Carnival and the ways in which the festival can add value, create sustainable, high-paying jobs in a wide range of areas, generate tax revenue, earn a stream of foreign exchange as well as contribute to the country's branding.
It is also important that UTT begin to study the linkages between various aspects of Carnival-such as whether the country's financial institutions are providing suitable packages of financing-not simply for people to buy costumes or attend all-inclusive fetes-for the manufacture of mas.
The UTT should also be giving serious thought to the possibility of using the Carnival Studies programme to contribute to the establishment of a Carnival Museum that would become the repository of the best of all that has gone before in each of the three districtive artforms that makes T&T Carnival so unique-calypso, steelband and mas.
With the right kind of Government, corporate and people support, a Carnival Museum could have discrete spaces dedicated to the documentation, appreciation and study of the evolution of calypso music, the magnificence of the golden age of Mas and the continued development of the pan. A museum focusing on Carnival would become a tourist attraction and it would underscore the important contribution that T&T and its people have made in the field of culture.