UWI principal says more Jamaicans must get tertiary education to improve economic output

 

Principal of the University of the West Indies, Mona, Densil Williams, has weighed in on the debate about productivity in Jamaica, saying more Jamaicans need to be enrolled in tertiary institutions to acquire higher skills to improve the country's economic output.

 

Professor Williams said while he agrees with anthropologist Don Robotham that getting more people to learn to read and write will help address low productivity, it still falls short of addressing the issue.

 

Mr. Williams, who is a professor of International Business, argues that more people need to acquire higher order skills from tertiary instructions to meet the economic demands of the fifth industrial revolution. 

 

"The problem you have is that you come out and you're just literate and numerate, but you can't interact in the global economy. And that alone is not going to be sufficient for you to get the bigger jobs and to also get the kind of networks that you need to start your own business and stuff," he said, noting that high school simply provides basic education and not training in specific fields. 

 

"And so what we really need in Jamaica if we're going to improve productivity, is for people to have a better, a larger mass of people to be educated at a higher level where they can deal with complex issue," he suggested.

 

Professor Williams added that only a small percentage of Jamaican high school students move on to institutions of higher learning. 

 

"In countries that we normally talk about well-developed and moving to developed status like a Singapore, South Korea, those countries, if you look at them, you will find that eight out of every ten students who leave secondary school move on to some level of post-secondary education, university and polytechnics and stuff. Eight out of every ten. In our country, we have two out of every ten, roughly about three out of every ten. So seven people are always there just at the basic level," he lamented. 

 

The UWI Mona principal has called for there to be greater access to tertiary education by making it affordable. 

 

"Just a few years ago, I recall reading something where this young man had about 12 or 13 CXC, CAPE and all in a high level, and was not able to access medicine at the UWI. And the only reason, he couldn't afford it," he recounted. 

 

While that student eventually got help to attend the institution, Mr. Williams bemoaned that this case was an exception, arguing that "You want the norm to be, having done well, you can matriculate." 

 

Mr. Williams was speaking Thursday morning on TVJ's Smile Jamaica.