By Ayanna Kirton, Staff ReporterTERTIARY LEVEL students suffer from terrible uncertainty about their prospects in the jobs market, said Dionne Brown, a first-year history student at the University of the West Indies.
Development of a strong and successful private sector would help ease some of these fears, said the 2003 recipient of the Prime Minister's National Youth Award for Academic Excellence. Ms. Brown was the guest speaker at the monthly Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) Job Creation Awards Ceremony held at the Terra Nova Hotel, St. Andrew yesterday.
The guest speaker said that she and many of her colleagues spent their first year at the UWI in fear of what would happen once they graduated. She said the lack of career opportunities in Jamaica was cause for concern among the country's youth particularly in the current situation where privatisation was the order of the day and there was less government intervention in the creation of employment.
PRIVATE SECTOR ROLE
Ms. Brown also urged private companies to play a more active role in making tertiary education more accessible to Jamaica's students and to reward innovative business ideas with the necessary venture capital resources.
She also noted that the promotion and development of less traditional sectors, such as the entertainment and fashion industries, was critical.
According to Ms. Brown meeting these challenges would help to change Jamaica's social foundation, making its youth more inspired and motivated.
