Medgar Evers College and The University of The West Indies in Jamaica and Barbados are forging ahead to boost presence of young men in their classrooms. The names are different in New York, Jamaica and Barbados but the essential goal is the same.

The objective: encourage more young men to stay in school, or if they have left, to return to the classroom and get a much better education.

At Brooklyn's Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, the pioneering project is called the male initiative while at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, officials have coined the title "MACHO," and it has nothing to do with a distorted sense of male ego. Instead, it is "Males at Cave Hill Operations." And on the UWI's Mona campus in Jamaica, where the University was born in the 1940s, it has yet another name.

With women accounting for at last 60 percent of the student populations, CUNY's Medgar Evers College led by Dr. Edison Jackson and the University of the West Indies, whose Vice Chancellor is Prof. Nigel Harris, have set their sights on boosting the male presence on the various campuses.

The Brooklyn school, which launched the project sometime ago, is beginning to see results, according to Dr. Jackson. And in the Caribbean where Sir George Alleyne is the UWI's Chancellor, there is an upbeat mood spawned by what they are convinced is a significant development in Jamaica and Barbados. At the same time, the UWI, says Sir George, isn't wringing its collective arms about the disproportionate female-male ratio. It's dealing with the problem.

"What MACHO, 'Males at Cave Hill Operations,' involves is aggressively going out and approaching males in the communities, in the schools and trying to show them that opting for going onto the University is not a nerdish thing, it is not something only for females," Sir George told the Carib News after chairing the UWI Council meeting where the issue was discussed recently.

And apparently MACHO is beginning to have an impact.

"There is evidence right away of an increase in the male applications to enter Cave Hill," the Chancellor reported. "In Jamaica, there is something similar, both at the level of the University administration and the students themselves who are going into the communities, going into high schools and tutoring males so they can do better in their exams."

Sir George acknowledged that the UWI was "sensitive" to the imbalance in the female-male ratio and that was why it was trying to do something about it. Females now account for about 60 percent of the 41,000 students enrolled at the UWI in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados.

"Not only are we sensitive to it but we are taking step to address it," Sir George told Carib News. "We have to deal with the input that we have. What we are trying to do is to increase the number of qualified male applicants to the University and I think both of those programs are really excellent. To have the students themselves involved is gratifying."

Prof. Rex Nettleford, UWI Vice Chancellor Emeritus, said that what was also needed was a "male friendly" curriculum at schools throughout the Caribbean that would encourage young men to stay in school and get an education.

Medgar Evers College had a head start with its male initiative and later shared its experiences with the UWI.

Earlier this year in New York, Prof. Harris said that it was important that the two schools forge ahead with their plans because the female-male imbalance in the UWI student population was not in their best interest.