BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - A thriving and robust economy is driven by a number of factors, and two of the more important are the education and skill level of a country’s human resource.
President of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CIC) Jose Rosa made this declaration at the recently held Federation’s National Consultation on the Economy.
He said the age in which we live is competitive to say the least and is “aggressively advanced by innovation and fueled by technology applications”.
Rosa however posited that the economy of the Federation in its “diverse and dynamic” state is one where “internal and external pressures constantly force us to change our practices and our methodologies to introduce new laws, build programmes and expand public infrastructure”.
In creating an environment for the encouragement of economic resilience, Rosa said a wide range of issues have to be scrutinized and decisions taken on what investments should be made and when.
He also said while some focus should be and is being placed on economic acceleration and resilience, sustaining the economy must also be a focal point. He expressed that key components to this are the education and skill level of the country’s human resource.
“Similar to these challengers, the Federation has other urgent matters to sustain this economy. For Example, education and skill level of our labor force are vital to sustain this economy. The educational system that creates vocational programmes, preparing students for engagement in industry sectors need to make sure it is aligned with the needs of the private sector.”
To this end, Rosa suggested that the curriculum be revisited.
“Education impacts the expansion of manufacturing; the level of customer services; the quality of technical repairs and maintenance and it impacts community development. The education and skills training need to meet the actual job environment. We have to make sure that the graduated student’s skills are fully utilized.
“The traditional conversation at the time to create the curriculum, which usually only include policy makers, needs to be revisited. The discussion, preparation and revision of the curriculum should include the inputs of the more diverse group of stakeholders.”
He said this process would lead to improvement in the level of “readiness of the new workers, reducing the training time and meet the expectations of the stakeholders redounding in a resilient economy”.
