The College:The Struggle For Survival and Transformation In Neocolonial Trinidad 1997-2018

ABSTRACT
Reflections: Participant, 2016- 2018
Trepidation and exhilaration buffet me from one moment to the next. Flashes of doubt disrupt my exuberant certainty that The College is destined for success. Nightmare-inflicting fears that The College might fail under my watch clash with the tantalizing possibilities that hover on the horizon and which tempt me with breath-taking promises of triumph.
Who is the bearer of this apprehension? It is I, the principal of The College.
This is not just any college. It is a college founded by my late husband, and one that feeds, clothes and shelters not only me, but also my adult son and daughter. It is a college that listed nearly 700 students a few years after its establishment in 1997 and yet today counts only a fraction of that number...
It is a college on the brink of collapse… or perhaps not.
Complexities and contradictions, survival and transformation, challenge and change are concepts whose juxtaposition with each other form the basis of this study. The case is of a family-run, for-profit provider of technical and vocational education. The thesis explores how this college, grounded in a neocolonial context has aspirations for a postcolonial reality of relevance and transformation. The methodology comprises a case study with an auto ethnographic turn.