Section 12
Data sources
Every number on this site comes from one of the 8 datasets below. Each entry records where the data came from, when it was collected, what it covers, and the gaps you should declare if you cite it.
8
Datasets
Bundled as static data
30
Documented gaps
Stated, not hidden
2 September 2026
Compiled
Latest verification pass
10/13
Enrolment rows with a public source
Remainder are retained baselines
Cite the report as the compilation and the underlying publisher as the source of the figure. Suggested form:
Jamaica Tertiary Comparative Analysis Report (2 September 2026), “{section}”, drawing on {original publisher}, {reference period}. Available at {source URL}.
Where a figure is an estimate, a lower bound or a retained historical value, say so in the citation. The enrolment table below carries that label for every institution.
Master_list_of_Institutions.csv
Compiled register of Jamaica's degree-granting and technical institutions, cross-checked against institutional websites.
- Origin type
- Compiled register
- Collected
- 2026
- Coverage
- 27 institutions
- Fields used
- Name, category, town, abbreviation, year of establishment
- Licence / attribution
- Report dataset — cite as Jamaica Tertiary Comparative Analysis Report, 2026.
Known gaps · 3
- Categories are as submitted; three categories contain a single institution each.
- Founding years for a small number of merged colleges refer to the earliest predecessor body.
- Institutions that operate only as offshore or franchise centres are excluded from the master list but appear in the locations table.
Enrolment.csv + Jamaica_Tertiary_Enrolment_Research.xlsx
Original institutional returns, revised against published institutional statistics, government reports and system-owner statistical reports.
- Origin type
- Mixed: institutional returns and public documents
- Collected
- Baseline undated; update verified 2 September 2026
- Coverage
- 13 institutions and one college group
- Fields used
- Institution, abbreviation, baseline figure, updated figure, reference period, evidence status, confidence, scope, source URL
- Licence / attribution
- Public institutional and government publications; each row carries its own source URL.
Known gaps · 5
- Only 13 of 27 institutions report enrolment at all.
- Reporting periods differ by institution and range from 2017/18 to 2024/25.
- Two figures are published lower bounds (CMU, Moneague) and two are rounded estimates (UTech, UCC).
- Seven rows are historical or retained baselines with no newer public equivalent.
- Teachers' Colleges of Jamaica is a group aggregate, so rows cannot be summed into a national total.
Comparative_Programmes_with_Yearly_Costs.csv
Published institutional fee schedules and programme catalogues.
- Origin type
- Institutional publications
- Collected
- 2026 academic year listings
- Coverage
- Programme-level tuition across the reporting institutions
- Fields used
- Institution, degree type, course, cost per year, modality
- Licence / attribution
- Institutional publications; figures reproduced for comparison.
Known gaps · 4
- Cost is annual tuition only — no fees, materials, residence or examination charges.
- Some programmes publish no cost; those rows are listed but excluded from every average.
- Institutions publish at different granularities (per year, per credit), so per-credit figures were annualised where the credit load was stated and omitted where it was not.
- Catalogues are not synchronised: listings were captured at different points in the year.
Staff_Qualifications.csv
Institutional human-resources returns.
- Origin type
- Institutional returns
- Collected
- Most recent submitted cycle
- Coverage
- 7 institutions reporting, 5 recorded as not reported
- Fields used
- Doctorate, masters, postgraduate diploma, bachelors, diploma/certificate, total
- Licence / attribution
- Report dataset — institutional returns.
Known gaps · 3
- Five institutions returned no figures; they are shown as not reported, never as zero.
- Full-time and part-time staff are not distinguished in the return.
- Where an individual holds more than one qualification, only the highest is counted.
Research.csv + Research_Contact_Hrs.csv
Institutional policy statements and academic workload schedules.
- Origin type
- Institutional returns
- Collected
- Most recent submitted cycle
- Coverage
- 11 institutions
- Fields used
- Time allocation, weekly contact hours, funding sources, narrative
- Licence / attribution
- Report dataset — institutional returns.
Known gaps · 3
- Contact hours were submitted as free text (for example '18 + 1' or '12 credits per term') and normalised to a weekly figure where possible.
- Funding sources are self-declared categories, not audited financial data.
- No research output, publication or grant-value data is present in the source.
Partnerships_and_MOUs.csv
Publicly announced agreements drawn from institutional newsrooms and the Jamaica Information Service.
- Origin type
- Public record
- Collected
- Announcements to 2026
- Coverage
- Signed agreements with a published date
- Fields used
- Title, date, source URL
- Licence / attribution
- Public announcements; each row links to its published source.
- Publisher
- https://jis.gov.jm/
Known gaps · 4
- This is a record of announcements, not a census — unannounced agreements are invisible.
- The rise in signings after 2019 partly reflects better online reporting rather than more activity alone.
- A few announcements carry no precise date and are excluded from year-by-year charts.
- Agreements are not attributed to a single institution in the source, so MOUs are charted sector-wide by year.
Geographic_Spread_of_Locations.csv
Register of tertiary and vocational addresses.
- Origin type
- Registry extract
- Collected
- 2026
- Coverage
- 73 registered addresses
- Fields used
- Institution name, address, derived parish
- Licence / attribution
- Report dataset — registry extract.
Known gaps · 4
- Parish is derived by matching parish names in the address string, not from official coordinates.
- Kingston and St Andrew are reported together as Kingston, consistent with how addresses are written.
- The register includes centres belonging to institutions outside the 27-institution master list.
- No campus size, capacity or student-per-site figures are available.
jamaica_online_tertiary_courses_2026.xlsx
Audit of institutional websites and prospectuses for online, distance and blended provision, with an evidence-confidence rating per row.
- Origin type
- Web audit
- Collected
- Snapshot 1 September 2026
- Coverage
- 320 offerings across 17 institutions; 51 providers audited
- Fields used
- Institution, offering, award, discipline, delivery mode, evidence confidence, source URL
- Licence / attribution
- Public institutional websites; each offering links to its official page.
Known gaps · 4
- Confidence varies by row: some offerings are confirmed on an official programme page, others inferred from a prospectus mention.
- Providers with no discoverable online provision are recorded in the audit rather than omitted, so absence is documented, not assumed.
- No fee or enrolment figures accompany online offerings.
- A website snapshot ages quickly; catalogues change between intakes.
Verified 2 September 2026
| Institution | Figure | Evidence | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of the West Indies | 15,772 | Exact | 2024/25 | Institutional statistical booklet |
| University of Technology, Jamaica | ~12,000 | Approximate | Current profile; accessed 2 Sep 2026 | Institutional website |
| University of the Commonwealth Caribbean | ~7,000 | Approximate | 2026 public profile | Institutional profile |
| Caribbean Maritime University | 4,000+ | Lower bound | 2024 | Institutional news/profile |
| Northern Caribbean University | 3,687 | Exact | 31 December 2023 | System-owner statistical report |
| Teachers' Colleges of Jamaica | 3,603 | Retained baseline | Not supplied | User-provided baseline |
| The Mico University College | 2,815 | Retained baseline | Not supplied | User-provided baseline |
| Knox Community College | 1,790 | Retained baseline | Not supplied | User-provided baseline |
| Moneague College | 1,380+ | Lower bound | December 2024 | Government information service |
| HEART College of Construction Services | 1,145 | Historical exact | 2017/18 | Government statistical report |
| HEART College of Hospitality Services | 833 | Historical exact | 2017/18 | Government statistical report |
| HEART College for Innovation and Technology | 823 | Historical exact | 2017/18 | Government statistical report |
| HEART College of Beauty Services | 790 | Historical exact | 2017/18 | Government statistical report |
Reporting periods and definitions differ by institution. Rows labelled lower bound, approximate, historical or retained baseline should not be summed into a national total.