The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

Word has spread that this country is facing a so-called ‘education crisis.’ Every few years, citizens of substance put forth lengthy reports after significant sector analysis and pat themselves on the back for concluding The Bahamas is, indeed, failing its students. An uproar surely follows — there is much gnawing on the proverbial bone to pick of consistently low BGCSE results, much mashing of keyboards as we rush online to blame the government, much hopeless commentary leading to the unenviable conclusion that “something needs to be done”.

When the collective anguish settles - maybe the government has bent the knee to one too many foreigners for our taste or one too many (legal, mind you) Haitians were seen riding the bus - our appetites for instigation are satisfied by the latest distraction, while our children and young adults continue to suffer.

Minister of Education Jeffrey Lloyd, speaking at a recent skills-gap forum - where still more pats on the back followed discussion of the same self-evident conclusions noted: “We [The Bahamas] have few advantages that compel anyone, even our own citizens, to demand that they do business with us.”

It is, therefore, a curiously ironic narrative that Bahamian students who study abroad come home not because they want to, but because they have to, whereas some seven million tourists from around the world choose to visit not because they have to, but because they want to.

And for the folks still at school or at home — nobody has told them about careers in tourism.

This country has long suffered from the misconception that a career in tourism amounts to either: (a) harassing beachgoers for jet ski rides, (b) selling questionably authentic straw products, or (c) standing behind a desk at Atlantis until you scrape together a down payment for an Accord. (Though the author is advised that Notes and Marches are the more eco-friendly choices of the day).

Nothing is said of the accountants responsible for keeping the hundreds of tourism-forward businesses afloat, the marine biologists advising sustainable tourism policy, nor the marketing specialists promoting our country on a global stage. Indeed, we boast that tourism accounts for some two-thirds of this country’s workforce. (The World Travel and Tourism Council puts the number at 48 percent).

But we know this. We repeat it endlessly — on ZNS, on radio talk shows and even in Parliament. What we might not know are the realities behind the numbers. The Department of Statistics’ 2017 Labour Force survey reveals some disturbing results: 29 percent of The Bahamas’ labour force have zero accreditation; 17 percent claim BJC’s as their highest examination passed. A further 25 percent have only BGCSE certification.

Incredibly, more than two-thirds of Bahamian workers operate at or below a high school level while 86 percent of those unemployed share a similar status. While The Bahamas has made incredible strides in developing its tourism industry, it has come at the expense of the many thousands of stakeholders who have played no small part in the sector’s growth.

We have benefited immensely from tourism as an economic development tool, but have completely disregarded its potential in educational development. In the midst of an ‘education crisis’ – perhaps before citizens of substance meet once more to decry the progress made since the last time they patted themselves on the back – they turn their attention to the enormous potential the tourism industry can provide for Bahamian students. These mutually reinforcing objectives—enhancing educational and job placement opportunities within the tourism sector, and dramatically expanding our tourism portfolio by making Bahamians stakeholders in the development of the country’s number one industry—should seem self-evident.

When our hands are too busy to put our fingers on the ever-slowing pulse of this country, perhaps we are in a crisis indeed.

CALYPSO

Nassau

March, 2020