The Question
How do we deliver results in the economic and social realm of the Region and at the same time keep our people at home contributing to its development. The emphasis needs to shift away from theoretical education to applied education. However, education alone will not do it.
We are churning out thousands of graduates every year. The jobs are limited and our universities do not seem to be guided by labour market studies but by the need to survive. Unemployment breaths frustration. Our graduates on the other hand have been nurtured on foreign information that is readily available on the Internet. Their focus is foreign.
Projects are used to bring about change. Business development is needed to improve our economies and life skills training is needed to help us deal with many of our social problems. To achieve results in the economic and social realm we can look at best practices, benchmarking and lessons learnt so we repeat the good lessons and do not repeat the bad ones. It has to be reiterated however that a lot of what we get in this area is from foreign sources.
The Solution to our issues – formal education alone will not work
We need to write our experiences more. We need to be the mentors and coaches to our young people so that they will want to stay at home and work with us in what we are doing.
We need to change the focus from a heavy dependence on business plan writing to determining appropriate business models and testing them out. We need to recognize that the establishment of businesses that will foster economic development has to be guided by project management plans and the use of project management tools and techniques. We need to create a buzz in the Caribbean that will make persons want to stay and /or come back home.
We need to write more and at a level that the ordinary man can understand. So!!! What is happening in Jamaica, in Barbados, in Trinidad and Tobago? Foreign universities carry a lot of information about the Caribbean and have sites dedicated to the Caribbean and we focus on their countries.
Apart from the above, Norman Girvan in his article entitled Societies at Risk, the Caribbean and global change proposed seven cross-cutting areas of action, and related policy research, for the Caribbean as it attempts to address this issue.
Caribbean Writers Market Place is a website which was created to promote writings of Caribbean authors in Project Management, Business Management and life Skills.writing. The linkedin Group Business, Project Management and Life Skills and Life Skills Writers of the Caribbean was also formed to promote such writings.