Description
The Consortium for Belize Educational Cooperation (COBEC) might well be a unique organization among higher education collaboratives. It includes all the significant tertiary-level institutions in Belize and most U.S. higher education institutions engaged in projects or activities in Belize. It is a minimally structured organization that has survived and thrived, without external funding, through changes in political and educational leadership in Belize and through budgetary retrenchment and crises in both Belize and the U.S. Despite its low profile and general goals, it has had a significant and continuing impact on the structure and quality of higher education in Belize and on the internationalization of U.S. member institutions. The first steps in the formation of COBEC were taken in the mid-1980s. Several aspects of the higher education context at that time influenced the creation of COBEC. In the early post-independence period of national development in Belize, higher education in the country was undergoing dramatic change: new institutions were being created, existing institutions were being reformed or expanded, and external linkages with educational agencies and institutions were proliferating. U.S. and international agencies earmarked funding for a wide range of educational projects and support in Belize, with the consequence that educators in Belize found themselves having to broker interests and intentions of educational entrepreneurs from the U.S. and elsewhere. ...