Enhancing Skills in the Eastern Caribbean Andreas Blom, Education Economist, World Bank, St. Lucia May 17, 2006

Overview Why should we care about skills? School is life From school to life Life is school The key points

Why should we care about skills Source: Population and Household Census 2001, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, OECS (St. Vincent and the G.): Salary by education level

Skills: Most important obstacle for Grenadian firms

New jobs: Skilled Workers by education level per economic sector (Caribbean)

Opportunities for everyone Competitive labor market Inequality Crime and youth unemployment

Overview 1.Why should we care about skills? 2.School is life 3.From school to life 4.Life is school 5.The key points

80% ends schooling with secondary Universal secondary: Fantastic Focused on preparation for tertiary level studies Few labor market oriented courses, (little counseling and little help in transitioning to the world of work)

Knowledge Economy skills Quality of education ! Growing focus on “life skills” Reliability, critical thinking, team work, etc. Also demanded by employers in the OECS Incorporated into curriculum, teaching and examinations

Life skills for jobs St. Kitts: Employers’ assessment of desirable skills Source: OECS St. Kitts and Nevis: Retraining the Sugar Workers, 2005

Live skills for jobs Caribbean: Employers’ assessment of most desired skill set Source: Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network: Labor Market Survey, 2006

Gaps in offered careers St. Lucia Hotel survey (WB 2005): Chefs/sous chefs, Managers/Supervisors, Front Office staff St. Lucia HR Needs Assessment (UWI 2005): Managers, IT-professionals, construction and hospitality Caribbean Labor Market Survey (CKLN 2006): Supervisors/managers, IT professionals, skilled trades workers, and technical workers Conversations with employers: Trained room attendants, food preparation and servicing, maintenance of tourism properties, spas and massages, yachting etc.

How to close the career gaps? Needs assessment, adjust offerings and enrolment admissions Permanent change: External board (society/employers) Track demand and job-performance of graduates at the local level Improve institutional focus: from “academic excellence” to “drivers of the local economy” Small countries / institutions: collaboration (CKLN)

Overview 1.Why should we care about skills? 2.School is life 3.From school to life 4.Life is school 5.The key points

Transition from school to life Where the chain breaks Lose your human capital Deviant behaviour Source: National Labor surveys different years

How to build skills in the transition Assist those with difficulties finding jobs Training, private sector driven to lead to jobs Traineeship successful in the OECS: 50% stay with employer Traineeship could be expanded much more

Overview 1.Why should we care about skills? 2.School is life 3.From school to life 4.Life is school 5.The key points

On-the-job training Low training of work force Source: Caribbean Investment Climate Assessment, World Bank (2005)

Reasons Lack of emphasis and systemic approach: –Improve firms’ HR policy –Increase labor unions’ focus on training –Government: many small ad-hoc efforts Poaching and small size of firms (public role) Low recognition and value of training Incipient market for private training

How to enhance skills in the labor force Goal: Market for training with standards, financing and evaluations (but Rome was not built on one day) Standards: Collaborate –Adapt CVQ standards (1-2 industry groups) –Information campaign on standards to workers and employers –Agreement with assessment agencies –Work on the portability within CSME Finance: Collaborate –2 nd chance education programs: 99% publicly financed –Unemployed (but motivated) youth: “75%” publicly financed –Employees: training levy? Monitoring and evaluation: Collaborate –You will never get it right the first time

Job and productivity from: Quality education School is exam, not life (labor market competency oriented) Empower and talk with employers Helping youth gain experience: Scale-up training and traineeship Creating a market for training: adopt a couple of CVQ standards for a key industry