Revamp educational curricula – Roberts

Head of the Hugh Shearer Labour Studies Institute, Danny Roberts, says the new year provides a golden opportunity for the country to revamp the current educational curricula.

He is encouraging the education sector to begin the process of re-educating the next generation on the virtues of proper values and attitudes, wealth creation, and the teaching of Garveyism from the early childhood to the high-school levels.

“These strategic choices must be done now, even as we move to fixing our labour market to ensure adequate employment protection legislation are in place to prevent the continued exploitation of some segments of our labour force,” Roberts said in his New Year’s message.

The trade union stalwart also called for the passage of the Sexual Harassment Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and amendments to the Employment Termination and Redundancy Payments Act, saying they should be priority considerations for completion during the first half of the year.

A parliamentary committee that is examining the Occupational Health and Safety Act has scheduled a number of meetings in Gordon House for next week.

The Hugh Shearer Labour Studies Institute, through The University of the West Indies, Open Campus, will be collaborating with the Bureau of Gender Affairs in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport to conduct a series of sexual harassment training once the legislation comes into effect.

“Its success, however, will depend on the extent to which persons are inculcated, primarily from an early age, with the proper attitude that promotes self-respect, dignity, and self-esteem, which are critical to peace, harmony and a productive relationship not only at the workplace but within communities,” Roberts argued.

Roberts is also contending that the decade of the 2020s should symbolise a real attempt by the country’s political leaders to introduce strategic, long-term changes to Jamaica’s social and economic arrangements to fundamentally alter the historic legacies of low productivity, inequality, and violence, which have marred the country’s sustainable development in the post-Independence era.