The Private Sector here has been called upon to invest and become more involved in education.
Executive Chairman at the Junior Achievement in Trinidad and Tobago, J Errol Lewis made the call during a ‘Power Breakfast’ which was aimed at raising funds for Junior Achievement Dominica at the Fort Young Hotel on Thursday.
“The time has come for the private sector to become much more involved in education,” he said. “For a long time, what has occurred is that we have waited on everybody else to educate our people, and then we try to employ them. So we wait for government, or the church, everybody else, to educate to create this educated product, this educated person and then we try to employ that person.”
Lewis is convinced that business owners pay a heavy price when they fail to invest in education.
“What occurs is that we then spend larger money in educating employees after we have employed them,” he argued. “We spend money on orientation, we spend money on training, on down time, on mistakes, and then we spend money on more mistakes, we spend money on negative attitudes, we spend money on all kinds of things when we employ people.”
He noted this does not make sense and business owners should get involved in creating a kind of product that is employable.
“What we should do is get involved in the fashioning of the kind of product you want to see come out of the system and therefore when it comes out of the system, it acts and speaks and behaves in a way that you would like it to behave,” he said.
It is on that note Lewis is urging the private sector to invest in organizations such as Junior Achievement. He noted that if investment is done now, there will be a return later.
Junior Achievement is world-wide organization dedicated to educating students about work force readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experimental, hands on programs.
Junior Achievement Dominica Inc, is the 122nd member worldwide and is located at Number 4 Fort Lane in Roseau.
don’t you mean you need the private sector to invest in the young entrepreneurs / workforce readiness candidates? it seems to me that your problem isn’t education per se; but what they are educated in meaning the people being hired are not ready for the work / real world environment.
Great job Junior Achievers…we rock!
Congrats to NECS and PSS for running with the challenge and to all the other schools who have since signed on.
Good job Ms. Yeeloy-Labad