Hilary Robertson-Hickling

This is the time of year when those of our students who are committed to excellence make applications for scholarships to undertake postgraduate work overseas. In recent times I have been encouraging them to look far and wide as the global world requires global experience. Our students need to look beyond Europe and America as India, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Brazil emerge as world leaders. I am eager to learn more about what is described in an advertising campaign on the BBC as 'Incredible India'.

India's educational system has achieved great results in such areas as science, mathematics, design, as well as having one of the largest pools of educated people in the world. In the United Kingdom, one-third of the medical practitioners come from the Indian subcontinent, and a significant number of the software engineers in the United States also come from India. I recently learned that increasingly, the wealthiest ethnic minority group of migrants in the U.S.A. comes from India.

I hope that many Jamaicans will grasp opportunities to study in India and will overcome the colonial notions that are centred around India's poverty and underdevelopment. The development of industry and commerce is also of great interest and I am intrigued that Mr. Lee Chin has made links with an Indian health-care management organisation for his planned redevelopment of the Medical Associates Hospital.

The links with India have also to be better articulated in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago which have large Indo-Caribbean populations. One thing that we can demonstrate in this region is that we can and must share the world. The challenges of living in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies have been painfully explored in our world and we can certainly teach others about this.

Subcontinent's complexity

On a visit to Kerala in India in the late 1990s, I was amazed at the size and complexity of the subcontinent, as well as its achievements since Independence. I realise that India's critics in the West are living in the past. I wished that I had a longer time to visit other parts of India, to see the physical beauty as well as the scientific and technological development of such cities as Bangalore. I intend to visit India at a later date, perhaps with some students of our high schools and universities.

We also owe the Cubans a debt of gratitude for their generous gifts of scholarships to our students. Many Jamaicans have benefited from these scholarships at a time when such opportunities are available to only a tiny proportion of our most brilliant students, to North America and Europe.

We need to prepare our young people for a world which encompasses nearly the 200 nations which are a part of the United Nations. Our own country has a good record of being hospitable to people from many other places. In fact, sometimes I suspect that we are more hospitable to others than to ourselves. Multicultural societies will increasingly become the norm and xenophobia will not be sustained, so we need to become more open and accepting of ourselves and others. We also need to learn from what has worked wherever it has come from. Best practice makes perfect.

Hilary Robertson-Hickling is a lecturer in the Department of Management Studies, University of the West Indies, Mona.