CARICOM OFFICIALS FOCUS LABOUR, EDUCATION AT COHSOD XV

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Chairman of the Fifteenth Meeting of the CARICOM Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), the Hon. Anthony Wood, Education Minister of Barbados has reaffirmed his Government’s ongoing commitment to the social and economic integration process in the Caribbean Community.

The Minister’s reaffirmation came as he addressed the opening of the Fifteenth Meeting of the COHSOD on Thursday 19 October at the Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown, Guyana. The three-day meeting is being held under the theme: Investing in Human Resources with Equity, with Special Reference to Education and Labour.

Pointing to the theme of the Meeting, the COHSOD Chair underscored its importance in light of the Region’s thrust towards social and economic integration through the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). Given the anticipated flow of persons who will move freely across the Region under the CSME, Minister Wood said this “raised critical issues pertaining to labour and education.”

Deputy Director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean, Ms Mary Read, who delivered the feature address, gave an overview of the Region’s position on the global scale in relation to labour and education.

She pointed out that unemployment was of particular concern to the ILO, and noted that women are almost three times as affected as men in this area. Ms Read said though the Region had recorded modest growth since 2000, this had failed to change the unemployment scenario, which pointed to the need to achieve economic growth that also included employment growth.

On the issue of education, the ILO official said, “There is wide spread agreement that the populations of the countries of the Caribbean are much more highly educated than in the past. This has not however translated itself into a better, more productive and competitive workforce.”

She referred to a number of areas in education and labour which have been modelled by countries outside of the Region from which the Caribbean can take pattern. These included the education sector taking into account “the types of skills and the diversity of skills required so that the population can find and keep productive and competitive work.”