On NMC’s new president

At Issue: The appointment of Jack Sablan as the new president of the Northern Marianas College.

Our View: We offer our congratulations equally wary of the daunting task ahead in strengthening NMC.

The NMC’s Board of Regents unanimously appointed Mr. Jack Sablan president of the Northern Marianas College last week.
Congratulations!

Now begins the task of guiding the development of NMC into a four year institution. Sablan plans a four-year program on education. It’s a good plan but he needs to take his goal beyond the college of education.

For instance, the board of regents must take into serious consideration the future installation of Information Technology in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
How would IT enhance such vital issues as quality of instructions down to cost savings in operations over the long haul? How could IT benefit students throughout the NMI who could use their personal computers to listen or download instructions? If IT is the future of the entire global community, then the board of regents must explore its potential benefits from A-Z.

Be it the Public School System or the Northern Marianas College, policymakers from all sectors must converge and engage in deliberate discussions on the need to support a viable and inexpensive IT. As premature as it may seem, it is appropriate at this juncture to begin discussion on how do we install the use of a central server in PSS and NMC in the education of our regular, part-time and working people in what’s known as continuing education? Would policymakers be willing to earmark adequate public funds for this purpose, including a revolving fund to allow families purchase of personal computers for use of their student-age children at home?

What we’re recommending is a policy matter that needs the best and sober minds of all concerns. Information Technology is the future of the entire global community whether we’re dealing with economics or other substantive issues such as its implications in conventional education. It’s the right thing to focus our meager resources on if only to put some teeth into our long speeches about improving the quality of instructions in our educational institutions.

This is just as good a time for Mr. Sablan and the commissioner of PSS to engage in informal discussions how, as captains of our Ship of Education, they would navigate the changing tides on the future of education in these isles in conjunction with the benefits of information technology. For now, we join the rest of the community in extending our hearty congratulations upon Mr. Sablan’s appointment as president of NMC. Congratulations!