“Then raise the scarlet standard high!
Within its shade we’ll live or die.” – Anonymous.
No doubt as evidence of the quality and diversity of our education, a wider menu of choice of career is available to today’s school leavers and job seekers. With a university campus along with other schools of technology on our shores, the inevitable shortage of applicants in some fields has overtaken us.
Gone are the days when choice was confined to the Civil Service, the teaching service, nursing and a career as a police or fire officer. Today, not only are the better students moving on directly to a campus of the University of the West Indies but also to colleges in North America, Britain or even Europe.
This movement along with the brain drain which attends any country that educates its people has been cause for concern and is no doubt, inter alia, a major reason for the paucity of suitable applicants wishing to pursue, for example, a career as a police officer.
Troubled by this challenge, the decision has been taken to lower the standard of entry requirements for police recruits but this has still not provided the answer. It is clear there is need to look at all aspects of employment in the public sector as it relates to conditions of employment, opportunities for promotion, job enrichment, benefits and perquisites according to sector as well as salary levels.
You will note we have placed salary last since we consider this not necessarily to be the major consideration but rather the other elements which go to identify a good employer. In some countries teachers are given housing facilities/allowances, while in others, career paths, including accelerated promotions, are clearly defined based on specialist qualifications and so on.
A business or institution aiming for excellence or which seeks to maintain standards of excellence often looks at job enrichment and definitely not a lowering of standards. Some years ago we lowered the standards of requirement for teachers, albeit with conditionalities, and today given the comments levelled at that sector and the increase in the numbers leaving secondary school unable to master written or spoken English, we are left to wonder.
If one takes a look at Ivy league schools and colleges, it is interesting to note one does not hear of lower standards of entry and it is because of this that those institutions continue to attract the best students and remain learning centres of choice.
In some instances, a pass in English Language is mandatory except where the applicant’s mother tongue is not English. In such circumstances other provisions exist. In fact in some countries a pass in English language is a prerequisite for a student visa.
We are a country devoid of natural resources. Our primary resource is our people and given our ambition for first world status, then it behoves us to ensure our educational standards remain high and that our citizens aim to achieve educational levels necessary for a service economy.
Let’s keep the “Broken Trident” aloft.
