Letter of the Day | We must develop our human capital – Jamaica Gleaner

THE EDITOR, Madam:

THE COVID-19 pandemic is here to stay for the foreseeable future. This has left the Jamaican Government in a precarious situation in ensuring Jamaicas economy gets back on track and mitigating the social gaps exacerbated by the pandemic.

However, this is also an opportunity for the Jamaican Government to take the socio-economic issues by the horns and work towards developing our human capital and, by extension, create sustainable changes throughout our society.

Interestingly, Prime Minister Holness stated that our survival as a people is often based around small business such as corner or community bars; he called this the economy around bars. Based on ones anecdotal evidence, it could be argued that Jamaica has the largest number of bars per square mile in any developing country, and some argue this as a fact. The point is, Jamaica has a whole lot of bars. We may then ask ourselves the question: why is this a cultural phenomenon in a place like Jamaica? Then, we may start to think that historically we produce rum; we may also agree that bars are the poor mans escape from the harsh realities of Jamaica. The point is, Jamaica has a lot of bars because our society has failed to develop human capital and nurture creativity for the development of other economic ventures outside of bars and small merchant shops across the island.

Jamaicans are talented people, but we must admit that we have failed poor Jamaicans by not investing in their development, as a people, beyond remedial education. We have many bar owners and shopkeepers who had dreams of becoming something else in life, but they have not seen many others like themselves being authentic and successful. So we turn to what we know for survival, being shopkeepers and bartenders.

Our educational institutions need to inspire people to be not just lawyers or doctors, but successful people. For many years, human capital development has lagged behind because we are not able to teach students life skills, to nurture creativity and, ultimately, promote diversity and inclusion in the Jamaican society. Jamaicans are largely descendants of slaves and much like our brothers across the globe who had the same experiences, we are susceptible to poverty and anti-blackness in varied forms. Particularly in Jamaica, we struggle with colourism and classism.

Teach our people to love themselves beyond the vestiges of colonialism and this will inspire Jamaicans to look beyond systems of oppression and cultivate their unique creative spirits into economic powerhouses. But first, the Government must provide room for this growth by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation in forgotten communities.

Instead, in the year 2020 we are scrambling to register these unregistered bars and shrink our informal economy. This is great; however, Jamaicans are more than unattached bar owners. We are diverse people with many dreams and aspirations. Jamaica needs to create room for this, to enable each Jamaican to be innovative and successful. We can do this by employing meritocracy in our institutions, diversifying educational curriculum and engender critical thinking and, last, we should invest in reducing classism and social exclusion of minorities throughout our society. This will prove beneficial for our future and beyond. Jamaica nice, but it can be nicer for everyone.

@speaknowja

speaknowja1962@outlook. com

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Letter of the Day | We must develop our human capital - Jamaica Gleaner