Editorial | Cockeyed TVET policy move

Jamaica’s policymakers and bureaucrats often have a cockeyed, upside-down way of going about things. Take, for example, last week’s announcement by the education minister, Fayval Williams, that the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ) will soon certify the technical and vocational education (TVET) programmes at Jamaican TVET institutions, and that the Government’s Vocational Training Development Institute (VTDI) is being upgraded as a tertiary education provider.

“You could get a master’s degree, you could get a PhD,” Ms Williams said in a Rotary Club speech. “We’re changing the landscape. We’re saying to persons, to students, just because you’re not going down this pathway you are lesser and can’t be successful.”

This newspaper finds nothing wrong with the minister’s position as one of the principles upon which Jamaica’s education system should stand, or with the idea of people pursuing a MSc or doctorate in plumbing or carpentry or motor mechanics. Our concern is the minister’s and the Government’s unilateralist and disjointed approach to policy formulation and implementation. Seemingly, they invite people to participate, then head off on their own.

The Orlando Patterson-led commission on the reform of Jamaica’s education system is a case in point. Professor Patterson is a celebrated Jamaican academic and intellectual. In 2020, he was invited by Prime Minister Andrew Holness to chair a blue-riband group to study what is to be done to turn around Jamaica’s poor education outcomes and place the island in a position to be economically competitive in the 21st century.

SEVERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

The commission, it seems, worked at breakneck speed. Its report has been with the Government for more than half a year – since last September. In March, the prime minister announced that Dr Adrian Stokes, an economist and financial sector manager, would chair a committee to oversee the implementation of its recommendations. Dr Stokes apart, no other member of that committee has been named. More critically, the Government has not initiated a public discussion of the findings. We are in the dark, too, on what Dr Stokes is being asked to implement, and, for that matter, if he is still on board.

As we noted previously, vocational education and training is among the matters addressed by the Patterson commission. It offered several recommendations on the subject. Maybe we err, but this newspaper expected that these, like the report’s other findings and related analyses, would inform new policy decisions in education.

As part of this process, the report would be subject to a robust public review. Ms Williams, however, did not reference the Patterson Commission in her Rotary Club speech.

A primary, and expected, conclusion of the Patterson commission, as have similar bodies before it, is that Jamaica has a great need of “TVET (technical and vocational education and training)”, given its demographic profile, its general shortage of skills in the economy, the country’s high level of youth unemployment, and the usual informality of work among young people. “This mismatch is a major brake on economic development,” the commission observed.

With more than a dozen specialised technical high schools, myriad public and private institutions providing TVET programmes and a wide variety of informal skills training arrangement, the issue, it argued, was not “a shortage of TVET institutions and initiatives in the island”. Rather, the institutions that exist have made little impact so far on the country’s “acute shortage of certified, skilled labour”.

Part of the problem, as was hinted at by Minister Williams, are the prejudices that drive bright students into the so-called academic streams and place a stigma on vocational and technical training. Additionally, said the report, vocational education training and certification is not well aligned with the needs of the private sector.

It is significant that the commission’s first recommendation with regard to this issue is that “TVET should be fully integrated into the secondary-school curriculum and rebranded in a well-coordinated and aggressive marketing strategy to effectively promote TVET programmes as a viable career path for national development”.

The second is for an improvement in the quality of education delivered to TVET students. Said the report: “Highly competent, qualified, motivated, flexible and creative teachers are the backbone of the TVET system. To implement a successful change in vocational education, instructors must be at the heart of the reforms.”

REPOSITIONING OF TVET

Thirdly, it called for a repositioning of “TVET to facilitate and strengthen capacities for entrepreneurial development”.

“Entrepreneurship education is believed to contribute significantly to economic performance through job creation, which in turn leads to a decrease in unemployment,” the report said. “There is the need for careful planning for entrepreneurship teaching in TVET, in order to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to plan, start and run businesses in either formal or informal settings.”

To be fair, the Patterson commission does not say whether the 11 recommendations on TVET are listed in order of priority. Yet, it is noticeable that the eighth of its recommendations is for the “establishment of a National Skills Council”, by widening the portfolio of an existing body, say the Apprenticeship Board, “to oversee education and training at all levels of technical and vocational education”. Among the roles of that body would be to “achieve greater policy coherence” in the sector, including oversight of “resource allocation”.

No doubt, both Prime Minister Holness and Minister Williams have read the report, or have had summaries of it prepared for them by a technical staff. It would be useful to know whether they agree with its recommendations on TVET, and whether these accord with the programme for the sector, as announced by Ms Williams last week.

We also wish to know why there is no urgency by the Government to launch a public dialogue on the report. At least, that is how it seems.