We have boxed ourselves into a corner. The professor is calling for a graduate in each household. The private sector is calling for qualifications and experience. Therein lies the dilemma.
A young boy or girl or an in-between nowadays entering the workforce finds him/herself confronting the fabulous strides that we are making to play catch-up with what the television says is today’s world. Nothing wrong with that! However, that changes the order in which we enter our youth into society.
Once upon a time a youth at high school spent sometimes three years in sixth form hoping to get a scholarship, knowing full well that university was beyond his meagre means. Not succeeding but qualified to matriculate, he/she was able to enter the Civil Service, teach, enter the Police Force and so on and earn a decent living.
More and more such avenues are being closed as higher or more qualifications than a school certificate are required – not to mention experience and training. Sometimes now, even a university degree in English or mathematics is not enough to procure a job teaching the subject, so that leaves a youngster exposed to taking rather low-paying or menial jobs as an option – unless he has a godfather.
Bright fellows used to work for three to five years or more after leaving school and accumulate enough money to afford university with excellent and satisfying results. Indeed many of our prominent professionals have worked their way through university without borrowing a cent or borrowing very little. Those who were lucky (like the Wild Coot, but he lick out his in profligate living) got a scholarship and advanced, although in his case only to create mischief.
The path to university should not be blocked by means. Those who have the intelligence should be given the opportunity, and even those who pretend to have the intelligence. However, our Founding Fathers never felt that we would find ourselves in this pickle when those who preside over us were privileged both at the University of the West Indies and abroad. Therefore they promoted university as a right backed by government.
Present circumstances have forced us to see things as they are, and now the wheat must be separated from the chaff although spectacularly, some chaff has obviously slipped through. It cannot be business as usual. Signatures and marching by students will lead to a cul-de-sac. Frankly, the powers that be consider you small fry – look at how they treat the CLICO virgins.
Somebody – I believe it was Mr Sanka Price or one of those big shots – said that the university issue was a booby trap designed to fool the public and lead away from the real issues. I believe so too. There were so many other non-sequiturs that should have been focused on. Principally among them was the logic behind decimating the pockets of the poor and middle class with more taxes, but expecting swift returns from those who lost reverse credit or lost jobs.
But Wild Coot, those who lost jobs will tomorrow get a pick for road building, the Almond revival, the start of the Four Seasons, the building of the marina at the Pier Head – that is growth. CLICO’s people will have spending power while those responsible for the debacle continue to thrive, pull strings and be prominent and influential in society.
Our politicians will continue to flout the institution of the highest courts of the land while sending a youth to purgatory for a “spliff”. The Bible, in which we all believe, says, “The way of the transgressor is hard.” Somewhere else it says “it is hard to kick against the pricks”. Ladies beware.
“No, Wild Coot, you have the wrong quotations.”
Seriously. When a man knows that he will face the rope within three months, he will think twice about how his neck will feel and the sound of the scaffold as he is prepared for Hades. You think that man would have chopped up somebody if he knew that a heinous death awaited him? I agree with you, Lowdown. Stop blaming the police. Blame our gutless politicians.
• Harry Russell is a banker.