Dennie Quill, Contributor
The amazing accomplishment of Audetta McClure must have raised the hopes of scores of hairdressers across the country. A teacher of cosmetology, Ms. McClure has become a world-beater, having earned the gold medal for placing first in the 2005/6 advanced diploma hairdressing course offered by the London-based City & Guilds.
I first became aware of the City & Guilds when I met a young Jamaican in the 1980s who had just qualified himself as a shipbroker. He was a graduate of the then CAST.
He recounted how he was the only candidate sitting in the examination room. Nervous and uncertain, he nevertheless applied all the knowledge he had garnered and he was successful.
He later acquired advanced qualification in this discipline. From my discussions with him, I learned that City & Guilds Association operated in nearly 100 countries helping thousands of people to develop a range of skills from plumbing to sheep rearing to beauty therapy.
Then in 2004, it was reported that Hugh Small of Brown's Town Community College had triumphed over all the competition in the world to ace the top marks in construction technology qualification of the City & Guilds.
Ambitious Jamaicans should seize these opportunities to raise their job prospects and improve their earning potential. Every graduate should ask this question: What is the shelf life of my certificate, or diploma, or degree?
For more than a century, City & Guilds has been awarding qualifications to promote competence and professionalism in industry. There are currently 500 qualifications in some 28 industries.
Respective Jamaican governments have tended to concentrate their budget resources on academic training, and vocational skill was treated as the poor relation of academic disciplines.
The result is that many of the students who cannot cope with the academics drift through the system anyway, but at the end of the day they are neither literate nor numerate.
In effect, many of our high schools are merely providing fodder for fast food outlets, gas station pumps and supermarket checkout counters. Yes, I have met Kingston College graduates working as service station attendants.
Hustlers and beggars
High school graduates form the large band of people who are lounging on street corners, who are hustlers, beggars and criminals. They are also the ones who although jobless, regularly attend the 'after work' jam sessions in New Kingston.
The weight of evidence indicates that a significant portion of our prison population is not educated and never acquired a skill. They are the ones referred to in police dispatches as 'labourer of no fixed address'. The easiest way to avoid a problem is to ignore it. And there is a problem with so many students leaving school unprepared for the workplace.
Serious attempts to improve Jamaica's skill base are focused at the HEART Trust/NTA and the NTVET, and while they have become a crucial part of the country's education infrastructure they are not enough to deliver the volume of vocational qualifications necessary for Jamaica to compete globally. The lack of skilled personnel is clearly an inhibitor to industry growth.
While the Government has a central role to play in ensuring that students acquire a good education generally, I believe skills training should be employer-driven. Employers should ensure that whatever training is undertaken is relevant to their needs. Specific training will guarantee more productive and effective workers.
And where workers undertake upgrading on their own initiative, they should be paid a premium for acquiring additional certification. The employers should seek to establish a close relationship with HEART Trust/NTA and NTCVET so they can help shape courses and qualifications that are relevant.
Today, the 'made in China' label is ubiquitous from clothing to electronic equipment, to furniture, to food. Countries like Jamaica cannot hope to compete with China, Japan or India with their low costs and low prices.
There is this constant struggle to improve competence, which sets ever-higher expectation on workplace efficiency. There is always a country that can produce an item cheaper. It means that Jamaica will have to move toward developing a highly-trained workforce whose skills will lead it to produce high value-added products for niche markets - not cheaper, but better products.
Dennie Quill is a veteran journalist who may be reached at denniequill@hotmail.com.
