Schools get failing grade for workforce - Deficit of skills to satisfy emerging labour demands, experts say

Jamaica’s education system is failing to adequately prepare its workforce to confront the rapidly changing technological demands associated with the future of work, says Danny Roberts, senior lecturer at the Hugh Shearer Labour Studies Institute at The University of the West Indies, Mona.

Roberts has championed a greater role for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) to drive connections and to address youth unemployment. Joblessness among Jamaican youths is at 20.2 per cent, almost triple the national average of 7.8 per cent.

He said further that as a result, employers continue to lament a deficit of skills required to satisfy emerging labour market demands.

He was addressing a recent ­subregional TVET workshop hosted by HEART Trust and the International Labour Organisation Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development in Vocational Training in Kingston.

“Small island developing states such as Jamaica need to rethink the pathway to quality employment by emphasising a fundamentally instrumental role for TVET in providing the requisite human capital to meet the requirements for sustainable development,” Roberts said.

The 2019 Global Com­petitiveness Report ranks Jamaica 36th out of 141 countries in terms of the quality of vocational training, but 93rd out of 141 on digital skills among the country’s active labour market. The country has also suffered falling productivity for the last four decades.

The country’s current workforce is just over one million , with about half the number on the pay-as-you-earn register (PAYE), the income tax net. A significant number of ­people, though ­working, remain outside formal employment ­circles as classified by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica and are, therefore, not on PAYE.

REFORM NEEDED

David Wan, president of the Jamaica Employers’ Federation, agrees that fundamental reform is needed to change the trajectory of the education system and the impact it has on the manufacturing and service sectors.

“Nobody could ever say the system is adequately preparing workers for the new, modern workplace, which is full of ­technologies, so I would agree there are deficiencies,” Wan said.

“Even in the basics of reading and writing, there is more that is desired. For example, 47 per cent of the CXC class last year passed three subjects, and this has been pretty much a constant year over year.”

Wan said that Jamaica must position itself to leverage quality education over the lifetime of the fourth industrial revolution, which is anchored on technology.

He expressed concerns that not too long from now, chatbots – robots designed to interface with humans through conversations – will be able to answer most of the ­questions people want answered, which will directly impact the ­business process outsourcing industry.

“All this shows we are not there. In fact, we have a lot of catching up to do,” said Wan.

paul.clarke@gleanerjm.com