Most of the college/university's programmes and services were developed as direct responses to the country's general economic and specific manpower needs and often in partnership with private sector and professional organizations and therefore may be classified as "service- oriented". Outstanding examples are our pharmacy programmes and our programmes offered in partnership with the Community Colleges.

The Energy Centre and the Entrepreneurial Centre are out-growths of faculty initiatives in response to perceived needs in the society. So too is the work in Jones Town and August Town carried out as part of the building and land management programmes. These are but examples of the many faculty initiatives, which have focused on the needs of the community outside of UTech.

The CAST Work Study Programme further articulated the college's service mandate: as voluntary service given by its students as a requirement for graduation. The idea arose out of Prime Minister Michael Manley's address to the Sixth Commonwealth Education Conference held in Kingston, Jamaica in 1976, where he articulated the concept of the "total school"¹. The "total school" would be involved with the national political process, manual work, economic production, community activity and creative activity. In developing the concept, the College developed its own set of objectives. The programme was implemented in the academic year 1997-1998 and placed under the management of the Vice Principal, under the title of the "Work Study" Programme with two key features: it was a requirement for graduation and the student had to participate in a service- oriented activity. It also kept another central concept of the "total school" – the integration of "town and gown" and an end to the artificial division between the ivy walls of the university and the community which supports it.

The Work Study Programme was reviewed and a new programme - the Community Service Programme (CSP) is to be implemented in the academic year 1999-2000.

The Student Body, led by the Students’ Union has been consistently aware and responsive to the needs for community service. The annual Tag Drive Week was initiated in 1965 and is actually entrenched in the Constitution of the Students Union. The beneficiary is the Jamaica Association for the Mentally Challenged and for the 1998-99 year the contribution from the Tag Drive was over $400,000.00

Their latest initiative is the Teach the Youth Programme.  In the summer of 1999 over 150 UTech students went into two inner city communities: Tavern and the Waltham Park Road Area to offer a remedial academic programme to students there. They taught/coached Mathematics and English and arranged for motivational talks. They were partly funded by the Social Welfare Commission.

The "Teach The Youth Programme" represents a significant community service which is in addition to the Union’s traditional summer school, which offers CXC and GCE courses here on campus to paying students.

Charity begins at home and in this spirit the Students Union in 1993-1994 established their "Love Luncheon" – providing highly subsidized lunches on campus. It also arranges subsidized transportation for Spanish Town and Portmore students to and from the UTech campus.

The Circle K Service Club has been active in community service since 1980 and in collaboration with the Office of the President has been closely involved with the Mustard Seed Project since 1998.