The absence from a college classroom doesn't mean you wouldn't want to be there. It often means you just can't be. But what if you want to pursue a degree? What if your community NEEDS you to get that degree?

Nursing students in the Caribbean can pursue their studies via a new distance learning program with a Canadian university that aims to reduce the region's nursing shortage, officials said Saturday.

The program, a collaboration between Toronto's Ryerson University and the University of the West Indies' Mona campus in Jamaica, hopes to combat a nursing shortage aggravated by emigration and a lack of access to education, said Ryerson chancellor Raymond Chang.