Peter Espeut | Underdeveloping our human capital

It is my view that the real damper on Jamaica’s economic growth and development is the underdevelopment of our human capital. A lightly educated and unskilled labour force cannot produce Jamaica out of our economic malaise, and cannot earn enough to create the demand that will stimulate the private sector to open factories and to industrialise agriculture. An educated labour force will start small businesses, which can grow into large businesses.

A highly educated labour force will be able to conduct the research that will allow the development of new products from the raw materials we produce. I continue to be mystified that countries like Belgium, Switzerland and Holland which produce not an ounce of cocoa have captured the global milk chocolate market, while we here in Jamaica with some of the highest quality cocoa in the world cannot get chocolate production right.

The largest producers of cocoa in the world are in Africa, but cocoa actually originates in the Americas. The Spaniards had large cocoa plantations here at the time of the English conquest, and cocoa drinking – although known in Spain – was not widespread. Sir Hans Sloane who came here in 1687 as the personal physician to the English Governor, learnt from Jamaicans how to mix cocoa with milk and sugar, and took the concoction back to England with him and popularised it there. English manufacturers imported our cocoa and sugar, and milk chocolate became an English product, not a Jamaican one.

NOT ALLOWED

In truth, colonial Jamaica was not allowed to manufacture chocolate – or refined sugar for that matter. British politicians were careful not to allow anything that could be produced in the UK to be manufactured here, so they could maximise British employment and win votes. Jamaica was created to produce primary products to go to the UK for processing. We had to import milk chocolate and white sugar from the UK even though we produced cocoa and sugar.

It was only after Independence that Jamaica built its first sugar refinery (at Monymusk) and its first factory to manufacture milk chocolate (at Highgate). They didn’t last because our manufacturing costs were too high (electricity, etc.).

And after Independence we chose not to mechanise our sugar industry, which would have lowered production costs; that would have thrown thousands of unskilled labourers out of work. We depended on our former colonisers to subsidise our agricultural sector with protective tariffs.

And at the same time, Jamaican governments continued the colonial policy of ensuring that not too many Jamaicans were much more than literate. Otherwise who would cut cane, weed bananas and pick coffee?

Before 1960, no high (grammar) schools for boys were built in the sugar parishes of Trelawny, St Thomas and Clarendon (one was in Chapelton, far from the sugar-growing Vere plains), and the banana parish of St Mary; of course there was Westwood (Trelawny) and Marymount (St Mary), but they admitted only girls. High schools for boys in sugar and banana areas would drive up the price of labour.

At Independence Jamaica had 41 high schools, 21 junior (primary) schools, and 672 elementary (all-age) schools; and of the high schools there were about seven for boys only and 14 for girls only; the co-ed schools had vastly more girls. To access one of the scarce high school places a student had to pass the Common Entrance Examination (CEE). Very many sat the CEE, but places were few!

Jamaica suffered under British colonialism!

BORROWED FROM WORLD BANK

Jamaica’s independence government borrowed from the World Bank to build about 60 high schools. Good move! But wait! Instead of building high schools for Jamaican children to pass the CEE to enter, they built junior secondary schools; to get in you had to FAIL the CEE. This preserved Jamaica’s elitist education system. Jamaica has not yet recovered from this bad decision by our first government after Independence!

Even after Independence, Jamaican governments sought to protect the cheap unskilled labour supply for the plantations. Between 1962 and 1976 the number of high schools (to get in you have to pass the CEE) increased from 41 to 44; and the number of secondary schools (to get in you have to fail the CEE) increased from eight to 71.

If after Independence the government had built high (grammar) schools instead of junior secondary schools, where would Jamaica be today? Certainly not in the sorry condition described in the Orlando Patterson Report!

We lacked vision, and we perished, because ultimately the UK moved away from protectionism, and our sugar could not compete against those countries which had mechanised, and we had to shut down our sugar industry, producing only enough to satisfy local demand and to make rum. We no longer have much of a sugar industry, and the unskilled workers were thrown out of work anyway. What is left is still not mechanised.

We do not have the imagination to find something else to grow on the old sugar lands. All we can think to do is convert prime agricultural land into housing.

And we are left with an education system designed to produce lightly educated unskilled labour to cut cane, when what we need is a technologically savvy labour force and a larger entrepreneurial class.

Transform Jamaica’s education system – develop Jamaica’s human capital – and watch Jamaica grow.

The Catholic Church is trying to turn things around with its own schools; our 10-year strategic plan calls for us to equalise the quality of all our schools at the primary and secondary level. All primary schools can be raised to the level of St Richard’s and Jesse Ripoll. And the goal is to raise Holy Trinity to the level of its neighbours (StGC and Alpha).

As an election draws near I do not hear either party with a similar strategy. It is unconscionable to operate a substandard education system that underdevelops our young people when better can be done. It holds back the country!

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com