EDITORIAL - Unemployed and unemployable

[Mosiah]

Me give up on "us"? Is whey mi live?

[Karl]

Me give up on "us"? Is whey mi live?

Well stap talk bout dem unemployable?

...dem can start wid a manual tink while den a get trained/qualified...an dem zooom den shoot fi bettah tings.

[Shatta]

These youths don't serve a purpose being employable and for those who talk about skill training why is it that Heart Academy gets overflowed with applicants if these youths don't want jobs?

since when do we blame the children?

what have this so called christian nation come to ?

children live what they learn and look at us, what you think say dem a learn from us the elders

aaah bwoy

respect

[Mosiah]

I have a little company here in Jamaica, Karl. If I interviewed some of those people, I would not be able to employ them. That means they are UNEMPLOYABLE. Maybe dem can do sinting else fi smaddy else, but as far as my bizniz is concerned, dem UNEMPLOYABLE! All the chat in the world cyaan change dat! They may be able to change it over time, but I won't be holding any jobs for them while they better themselves. DEM UNEMPLOYABLE!!! And dem unemployable not just to me but to most employers who require basic reading skills.

[MdmeX]

I have a little company here in Jamaica, Karl. If I interviewed some of those people, I would not be able to employ them. That means they are UNEMPLOYABLE. Maybe dem can do sinting else fi smaddy else, but as far as my bizniz is concerned, dem UNEMPLOYABLE! All the chat in the world cyaan change dat! They may be able to change it over time, but I won't be holding any jobs for them while they better themselves. DEM UNEMPLOYABLE!!! And dem unemployable not just to me but to most employers who require basic reading skills.

....And that folks is the TRUTH, as uncomfortable as it sounds to you. As Barbara Gloudon seh too much of dem don't know "A from Bull foot" (long time mi nuh hear that phrase).

[Assasin]

If it wasn't fi you company rep you employ them and build a house like the one a folly point in Port Antonio for Karl

[Karl]

I have a little company here in Jamaica, Karl. If I interviewed some of those people, I would not be able to employ them. That means they are UNEMPLOYABLE. Maybe dem can do sinting else fi smaddy else, but as far as my bizniz is concerned, dem UNEMPLOYABLE! All the chat in the world cyaan change dat! They may be able to change it over time, but I won't be holding any jobs for them while they better themselves. DEM UNEMPLOYABLE!!! And dem unemployable not just to me but to most employers who require basic reading skills.

...so now it is to your buzniz? Suh dem nat unemployable...jus dat you do not have a job for them. Den yuh shudda seh dat fram di fus! ...but hit his good fi si yuh change yuh tinkin in such a shot time. Dere's ope fi yuh!

Cum jine mi Missa Mosiah?
...neva give up pan di man an oman dem!

[MdmeX]

Karl - wha happen

All we a try fi tell yuh long time is that the job dat most of them looking, dem caan be employed in that position. In adda words, them employable, but not in the Sector that them looking.

Say - can you see clearly now that the rain is gone

[Mosiah]

No, mi nah jine yuh foolishniss!

Karl, dem cyaan read!!!! Dem can get wuk a load one markit chuck. Apart fram dat - DEM UNEMPLOYABLE!!!!

[MdmeX]

If it wasn't fi you company rep you employ them and build a house like the one a folly point in Port Antonio for Karl

You would have to build it at Shady Pines though

[Karl]

Train, educate and employ them

Train, educate and employ them
Wesley Barrett
Monday, October 22, 2007


MINDSETS and deep-seated positions, particularly of leaders, can be hindrances or drivers of desirable change and development. If the positions are positive, they drive or cause to accelerate positive changes in existing situations.


Wesley Barrett

If they are negative or unreflective, they retard and block real progress, consciously or unconsciously, or at best encourage the status quo. These positions have been evident in the education and training systems in Jamaica for a long time now. It is now urgent that the negative position gives way to the positive one, if the country is to move along the development pathway rapidly.


There have been many leaders who virtually 'give up' on some young people, albeit rich resources, who they say are 'unemployable'. They repeat this judgment so often that other people may be inclined to believe it, and the latter and the leaders do nothing about it. Often the reason advanced for their unemployability state is that the persons are illiterate and uneducated. At once I challenge the notion that anyone except an imbecile or insane person is unemployable in all areas of work. Many illiterate persons can be employed while learning literacy skills.


A little reflection should lead us to reason that many people do not have a formal school education, but have either non-formal or informal education that can be utilised in some area. Their state of not having a formal school education may be their own fault but more often it is the neglect by national leaders in not putting in place the systems and structures for all to obtain a school education or properly organised 'home school' education. More importantly, we should set about educating and employing them.


There has been talk about compulsory school attendance and adequate inducement to learning in all classrooms, but where has been the sustained action? The mindset is that it cannot happen in our generation, but interestingly we have seen it happening in present and even past generations of people elsewhere. We can turn to some of our Caribbean neighbours for examples, if not inspiration.


The matter of employability is one of mindset. Both the employed and the unemployed have skills and competencies to varying degrees of development. Some of those skills only need some honing, while others need redirection for gainful employment. I have met some illiterate and unemployed persons who are near geniuses in some areas that confound me. The problem is that we are not matching skills and competencies with job opportunities, or creating these opportunities. That is not to say that we do not have a huge skills training gap in diverse areas needing immediate attention.


My contention is that there is a humanism which says that every physically and mentally functioning person has latent capacities that can be developed or employed for mutual benefit, only if we would find out and match the capacities with the individual's interests and some needful areas of work and engagement. Many persons have advocated this for many years but without success because some leaders say that it can only be done 'tomorrow'. Such leaders need to make tomorrow, today!


A relative handful of leaders have, however, demonstrated the philosophy that we can elicit a positive response from everyone. The programmes they have initiated and spearheaded bear testimony. We need more of these to chart our development path and to influence the others to come on board in putting more people to study and work.


There is a pet phrase used by some leaders both here and abroad that 'education makes you trainable and training makes you employable'. In my view, they have stopped short of a reasonable conclusion. The conclusion should be 'therefore, we should educate and train everyone so that we have a population of employed people'. Nothing short of this will communicate that it is not merely repeating a sweet-sounding phrase, but instead stating some positive action for our leaders and ourselves.


There is an emerging consensus that a literate population is a key building block for good education and training. In the long run it is more cost effective to develop the literacy skills through schooling in the early years of life rather than providing remedial programmes later on. This remains a priority. However, learning literacy and occupational skills simultaneously is possible and the only option in some cases.


Internationally, many persons are in fact being trained occupationally while they are learning literacy skills. Many of the implemented projects are demonstrating that there is an incentive to learning literacy skills when these skills are related or applied to some occupational programme. The ILO supports this feasible and sensible approach given situations where persons are found to be illiterate but are capable of engaging in work-related training in which they have an interest. We should in fact make literate, train and employ everyone. National development requires this.


The approach to learning and training should be to start with a diagnosis of needs and at the same time learning about learners' or trainees' interests, prior skills, aptitudes and expectations. After which it would be ascertained what the learner or trainee already knows or can do before proceeding to what they need to know or be able to do.


The next step is to develop and implement an individual and a group learning or training programme followed by an evaluation. Merely lamenting what learners or trainees cannot do, without building on what they know and can do, is decidedly negative and blocks progress.


I urge that we accelerate the process of identifying and forecasting needs and believe that everyone is capable of involvement. In the training system there is a host of training needs to be met spanning the full range of existing and emerging occupations. Other supporting systems to HEART and the other formal vocational training institutions need therefore to be established in the present scenario. Let us address this matter in a concerted way over the next few years and cease speaking about young people being unemployable.
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Wesley Barrett lives in the same world I do!