THE EDITOR, Sir:
I AM dismayed by a recent article in The Gleaner which stated that, after a number of floodings due to heavy rainfall in St James which affected the Ritz Carlton hotel complex, has found it necessary to fly in engineers from abroad to assess the situation and to eventually have the problem fixed.
The island of Jamaica happens to be graced with two major institutions of higher education, namely UWI and UTECH, which educate and produce people in various areas of engineering.
Am I to understand that the people who graduated from these institutions are incompetent and incapable of effectively employing the knowledge gained from these institutions?
Worse yet are the educators at these institutions of higher learning themselves incapable and incompetent?
It would be a wonderful opportunity for local people to demonstrate their skills by addressing the issues themselves, thereby highlighting the capabilities of our people and the relevance of those institutions.
Unless, these are the very same people who are responsible for the poor engineering work which was causing the floodings in the first place and have come up with no logical solutions to fix the problem.
If this is the case, I would suggest that people stop sending their children to UWI and UTECH and consider foreign education as this seems to be the only way that the people of Jamaica will benefit from solid engineering work.
Then again one only has to drive around the streets of Jamaica and come face to face with the numerous potholes and poor drainage to come to the conclusion that the management at the Ritz Carlton may have a point. This is very sad. Let's do better, Jamaicans.
I am, etc.,
JAMAICAN ABROAD
seymourbrooks@rogers.com
Toronto, Ontario
Via Go-Jamaica
