GROUP CHAIRMAN'S BLOG
Articles & Columns Published in the Jamaican Sunday Gleaner by Dr. Winston Adams
Are Colleges Preparing Graduates For Entrepreneurship?
Are Colleges Preparing Graduates For Entrepreneurship?
September 3, 2017
JAMAICA'S JOB market is extremely challenging for many graduates leaving universities and colleges. Gone are the days of the 1960s and '70s when students leaving the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Technology (UTech), formerly CAST, had the choice of several attractive positions in the private and public sectors.
Apart from traditional professions, such as medicine, nursing, law and teaching - for which there is a steady annual demand because of migration - many graduates of tertiary institutions struggle to find fulfilling employment. With their numbers increasing, more young college or university graduates are being encouraged to start their own businesses.
It is a fact that, with the increase in information and computer technology, most jobs of the future will not be lifelong engagements with large private or public entities. Rather, these jobs will be of shorter duration with much technology-driven and macroeconomically-driven change and require retraining, upskilling and lifelong learning.
Traditional jobs will be the subject of fierce competition and many graduates will need to create their own jobs and enterprises, or work in teams to do this.
Making Tertiary Education More Affordable
Making Tertiary Education More Affordable
June 18, 2017
Government's recent bailout of hundreds of local tertiary students represented a timely reminder of the imbalance between the potential demand by Jamaican students for the provision of tertiary education and the inability of these students to afford such services.
Recall that in April this year - the onset of the 'exam season' - hundreds of university and college students faced the grim reality of being barred from sitting their final exams because of unpaid tuition fees. This situation has become a recurring decimal each year as more and more students seek to attend tertiary institutions, while being unable to meet the rising costs of such higher-level studies.
Add to this the factor of continuing globalisation, which has driven universities to become business enterprises. Universities everywhere are reducing their reliance on public support and are seeking to become more entrepreneurial. Compare the University of the West Indies, Mona, now to 15 years ago.
Government's injection of $300 million to assist needy students at the UWI, Mona, the University of Technology, and the Caribbean Maritime Institute campuses is a decision that was indeed applauded by the Opposition People's National Party and student leaders.
The Impact Of Recent Tax Measures On Higher Education Sector
The Impact Of Recent Tax Measures On Higher Education Sector
April 21, 2017
Much of the national debate over the past two weeks have centred around the Government's controversial tax measures of $13.5 billion imposed to fill the hole in the budget.
Government has staunchly defended the tax measures which confirm its policy shift from taxing income through the PAYE to the taxing of consumption through the imposition of General Consumption Tax (GCT) and Special Consumption Tax (SCT) on items such as motor vehicle fuels, alcohol and cigarettes.
But how have these tax measures impacted on the higher education sector?
In the absence of a detailed study on the costs of running a tertiary institution, it seems the recent tax measures will cause an increase in overall costs of running these operations. Some of the increased bills that will arise include:
