TOP NEWS
NLC has project overseas
College’s construction technology program helps out the
tiny island nation of Mauritius
By Matt Keyser,
Managing Editor
North Lake College is expanding the reach of its core construction classes beyond the boundaries of Dallas County. This year, those courses reach a tiny – but lush – island in the Indian Ocean.
“It’s a long ways away from North Lake,” said Mike Cooley, executive dean of construction technology at North Lake’s DFW Education Center.
Commerce has a way of shrinking the world, though.
That small island nation is Mauritius (pronounced Maur-i-chious), located off the coast of Africa, about 500 miles east of Madagascar. Commercial development is mushrooming along its sugar beaches, attracting boatloads of visitors.
“[Mauritius’] economy is based on tourism,” said Joyce Williams, interim director of workforce education for the Dallas County Community College District.
The 788-square-mile island is smaller than the state of Rhode Island and isn’t easily found on a map without a magnifying glass. But Mauritian offi cials describe their real estate like a high-end Caribbean resort.
The island wasn’t always a popular tourist spot, however. Both Portuguese and Dutch settlers abandoned the island centuries ago. The Portuguese lacked interest, and the Dutch weren’t able to produce profits. The French fi nally settled the island in 1715 as a rest stop for merchant ships en route to India. The French renamed the place ‘Isle de France’.
During the Napoleonic wars, the island became a base for French corsairs to organize raids on British commercial ships. The British soon sent a large number of troops to capture the island and overpower its French inhabitants.
The Treaty of Paris in 1814 forced France to hand over the ‘Isle de France’ to the British, who renamed the bump on the water Mauritius. The British promised they would respect the language, customs, laws and traditions of the inhabitants.
In recent years, the numbers of tourists traveling to the island have skyrocketed.
“There’s so much construction it’s unreal,” North Lake’s Cooley noted.
To keep up with the sudden increase in tourism, Mauritian officials scrambled to build hotels and resorts.
But they needed help.
Island officials invited the GRIMUS Institute of Canada, which runs a number of technical schools in India, to search for an established construction-training school. The group checked on 40 universities in Canada and the United States before stumbling upon North Lake’s DFW Education Center.
“We [North Lake] were ideally suited,” Cooley said. “Other [schools’] programs didn’t fit [Mauritius’] needs. They were either purely engineer, or they didn’t have the quality [Mauritius] was looking for. [North Lake’s construction program] was the only [program] that fit their needs.”
After initial inquiries, though, college officials heard nothing from the GRIMUS Institute for six months. But they returned recently and said Mauritian officials want to duplicate North Lake’s construction program on their island. A 40,000-square-foot building will be remodeled after North Lake’s DFW Education Center.
Beginning this year, instructors from Mauritius will attend all core construction classes at the DFW Center in Irving, Cooley said. Each instructor will spend between four and six months here.
After the instructors become certified and the Mauritian campus opens its doors to students, officials hope to graduate approximately 200 skilled craftsmen each year.
“Mauritius is an opportunity for NLC to expand its [construction] programs,” Cooley said.
Cooley and other district officials weren’t able to say immediately whether North Lake and Mauritius someday will establish some sort of exchange program involving students from both schools.
“Planning hasn’t moved that far ahead,” Cooley explained.