Preparing Guyanese youth for 21st Century economic development
By Wilberne Persaud
In my April 2020 commentary:
“GUYANA | Workable,
Transparent Gov’t Policy Needed
for Oil and Gas Investment”
an important bullet point read:
“Guyana has but one limited,
time-bound chance, to make
oil and gas its pathway to sustainable
development with
environmental and human
development equity.”
Few thoughtful human
beings now dispute the notion
of a short time window to combat
global warming with any
hope of success. Confirmation
arrived with the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment
Report released this
month. Alarmingly, it concludes
that many changes in
the climate are “… unprecedented
in thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands of
years, and some of the changes
already set in motion — such
as continued sea level rise —
are irreversible over hundreds
to thousands of years.”
More than half century of
data indicates our global consumption
of food, feed, fibre,
timber and energy, account for
unprecedented rates of freshwater
and land use. Unavoidably,
current modes of production
guarantee such bounty
contributes significantly to
increasing net greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions plus, loss of
natural ecosystems.
The report’s release coincides
with currently observable
climate events across the
globe. Undoubtedly, this in
part, accounts for the changed
nature of general perception
and attitudes towards fossil
fuel use. It may indeed be
argued that combined with
current regulatory threats,
the limited time horizon for
international oil companies
(IOCs) to revamp their business
model dictates action now
or risk obsolescence.
Economic development
For Guyana, sustained economic
development with equity
requires a new thrust in provision
of education. A thrust
enabling a larger cohort of
Guyanese youth, to be part of
expanded labour force participation
in development activities,
using the oil windfall as
catalyst. If the government of
the day is to realize its national
objectives of promoting local
content in the oil and gas
sector, an educated, resilient
Guyanese labour force that is
capable and trainable is key to
success.
Data from the Caribbean
Examination Council between
2006 to 2016, show passes
(grades one to three on a scale
of six) in English Language
and Mathematics for the Caribbean
Secondary Education
Certificate (CSEC) from) hover
around 49% and 37% respectively.
Here are the results for
the greater Caribbean: Saint
Lucia (60%), Trinidad and
Tobago (60%). Saint Kitts and
Nevis (59%), Grenada (57%),
Jamaica (53%), Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines (53%),
Guyana (50%), Haiti (45%).
Importantly, merely 15 % of
students leaving secondary
school go on to university. Of
this number, a large percentage
emigrates. Absent available
data, experts suggest Guyana
tops this cohort.
Global economic activity
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean Life, S 10 EPTEMBER 17-23, 2021
has already embarked on
a fourth industrial revolution.
New technologies bring both
threats and opportunities. The
latter for Guyana are undoubtedly
substantial. Shall they be
grasped?
Caribbean economy
Today’s enduring feature of
Caribbean economy remains
reliance on natural resource
exploitation, despite the fact
that so long-ago, Eric Williams
recognised colonial British
West Indian Plantations
as actually, “Factories in the
Field” — precursor to the first
industrial revolution.
It was Williams who arranged
for Sir William Arthur Lewis,
Saint Lucian economist, first
principal of the University College
of the West Indies, subsequently
Vice-Chancellor of The
University of the West Indies
(UWI), and later Professor of
Political Economy at Princeton
University, to provide his
firmly based industrialisation
proposals — so terribly and
regrettably on occasion, corruptly
implemented.
Guyana to this day, relies
primarily on natural resource
extraction — a model incapable
of providing rising standards
of living for a population
with growing expectations.
Young people — highly
trained, potential future leaders
— face unacceptably high
levels of avoidable unemployment.
Average youth unemployment
across the Caribbean
is as high as 30%. Despairing
this future, many emigrate.
Small size and extreme vulnerability
mandate appropriate
education for Caribbean
youth be promoted, not merely
for personal social advancement
but as national resilience
strategy. The young population
must acquire skills necessary
and preparatory for competitive
participation globally.
Congruent with emphasis
on knowledge creation, generation
and innovation, investment
in education must be
twinned with building domestic
capital. In such a dispensation,
an enhanced capital sector
shall use domestic capabilities
to generate new knowledge
and by extension, productive,
rewarding jobs.
Unemployment in general,
but amongst youth in particular,
is by no means inevitable.
Global demand for services in
a multiplicity of areas plainly
guarantee this.
Limiting factors driving
youth unemployment include
uncompetitive or no infrastructure
for Information and
Communication Technologies
(ICT) — bandwidth an obvious
limitation. Guyana as an
English-speaking country with
a literacy rate of over 85% is
ripe for investments in such
low-hanging fruit in both ICT
and business process outsourcing
(BPO). Yet this should not
be the dominant desideratum,
although there are significant
near-term benefits to be
gained from providing valueadded
services beyond the routine
data entry and call center
operations.
A 20-to-30-year window of
oil wealth generation is ample
time to fix this. Our education
system, particularly at the secondary
school level, leaves too
many youths behind. That this
occurs is unsurprising given
the fact that the major influence
in its creation was the
English ‘public school’, a model
that groomed male upper-class
youth for their role in governance
and empire.
Should we agree reexamination
of the education system
is necessary, it’s no big leap
to figure the formative years,
at least to high school level
should take precedence. Caribbean
Ministries of Education
have tinkered with approaches
to refashioning “common
entrance” examinations or its
regional variants, for students
around 11-13 years of age. This
we may agree, is a pivotal age
group.
Regrettably, these examinations
act as a sorting mechanism
shunting our children
either into “better quality” high
schools or a holding bay for
the rest, who unavoidably, face
an uncertain future. For those
who fail to do well enough at
the high school level, community
colleges and their alternatives
are perceived, not as
high-quality institutions for
the most able but rather, as
places for those who do not
‘cut it’. This, notwithstanding
the fact that we know students
blossom at differing rates.
This sorting mechanism
has bad outcomes, particularly
for males who have not yet
acquired the maturity of their
female counterparts. Many are
thus left behind. This is a pernicious,
unnecessary sorting
mechanism. The challenge:
how to give students at all
levels a fair start to achieve
required standards. The legacy
of this model might very well
be lack of investment in the
hard infrastructure and technology
necessary to equip Guyanese
and regional students for
21st century education, a fact
made evident by the digital
divide during the coronavirus
pandemic.
The solution demands
equalizing quality at preparatory
level, ensuring students,
regardless of economic circumstance,
receive a firm foundation.
Careful analysis should
determine whether challenges
identified start at an early age
or later and, what contributing
differences derive from
resources available to private
versus public schools. There’s
oh so much more to say! Guyana
needs to act now to avoid
creating more recruits to the
diaspora in continuing brain
drain.
Wilberne Persaud is a writer,
op-ed columnist and economist,
formerly senior lecturer
and head, Department of Economics,
The University of the
West Indies, Mona, Kingston,
Jamaica. His latest publication:
“Jamaica: Post-Colonial
Struggles for Dignity, Equity
and Development – Wilberne
Persaud Selected Columns
1976-2013” is available on
Amazon, in both Kindle and
Paperback Versions.
OP-ED
Founded 1990 • Published by Brooklyn Courier Life LLC
A DIVISION OF SCHNEPS MEDIA
Corporate Headquarters: One Metrotech Center North, Suite 1001, Brooklyn, NY 11201
PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER: Victoria Schneps-Yunis
CEO & CO-PUBLISHER: Joshua Schneps
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Ralph D’Onofrio
EDITOR EMERITUS: Kenton Kirby
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Kevin Williams
This newspaper is not responsible for typographical errors in ads beyond the cost of the space occupied
by the error. All rights reserved. Copyright© 2021 by Brooklyn Courier Life LLC. Caribbean
Life is protected by Federal copyright law. Each issue of Caribbean Life is registered with the Library
of Congress, Washington, D.C. The Caribbean Life, its advertisements, articles and photographs, may
not be reproduced, either in whole or part, without permission in writing from the publisher except
brief portions for purposes of review or commentary consistent with the law.
Wilberne Persuad.