JMEA boss urges action to fix pandemic’s impact on education, employment
Published:Friday | August 19, 2022 | 12:06 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
JOHN MAHFOOD, the president of the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA), is worried that the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on Jamaica’s education system and on citizens’ state of employment will negatively affect the country’s future economic prospects.
Mahfood voiced his concern while addressing Wednesday’s media launch of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (MBCCI) upcoming Expo 2022 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall, St James. The planned expo is expected to take place from November 4 to 6 under the theme: ‘Building resilience, creating opportunities.’
“As we emerge from the onset of COVID-19, it is important that we make up for the lost opportunities of the past few years. We must recognise the severe hardship that our people have endured, including being out of work for a long period of time, sickness and death, loss of educational opportunities, and loss of purchasing power ... . But of all the things mentioned, I am most concerned about the loss of education,” said Mahfood.
“Being a chairman of an inner-city school, I have seen the devastating impact [of COVID-19] on the Primary Exit Profile exam results and the fact that, during the last two and a half years, at least half of our students had no access to any kind of online learning. You can imagine that two-and-a-half-year gap going through the system through to high school, and this has a far-reaching impact both on our children and on our economic development and crime,” he added.
His concerns about the pandemic-induced learning loss among the nation’s children echo previous disquiet which emerged following the Ministry of Education’s findings that some 120,000 students were unaccounted for during the height of school closures in March 2020, during the COVID-19 spread. In May, the education ministry reported that 27,000 of those students have not returned to in-person classes.
Last month, Elaine Foster-Allen, former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, warned of dire consequences for Jamaica if the issue of missing students should remain unchecked.
On the matter of unemployment and job losses due to the pandemic, Mahfood urged the Government to step in quickly to address the national fallout that Jamaica will experience if the issue is not rectified.
“One of the lingering problems of COVID-19 has been the shortage of skilled and unskilled labour. We are hearing about this from all sectors, including business process outsourcing, tourism, manufacturing, and general services,” said Mahfood.
“This even goes to the extent of Kentucky Fried Chicken, where they were short 800 employees and had to start keeping campaigns to try and encourage people to apply. If this problem is not addressed by the Government, it will damage our ability to grow into 2023-24.”
Keith Duncan, the co-chairman of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee, recommended last month that programmes should be instituted to train young people for the job market, with approximately 500,000 persons absent from the local labour force.