Top WTO Diplomat Worries About Caribbean Young Men
By Tony Best
Dec 27, 2005, 15:51
It's a sorry Caribbean tale, like a recurring decimal, repeating itself throughout the Caribbean.It's one of young men in the region being surpassed by females in the classroom and on the job and that's true whether it's in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Jamaica, Guyana, the Bahamas, Antigua or Haiti."Young men in the Caribbean aren't competing as they should," said a sociologist recently.
"It's observable everywhere, even on the cricket field as the West Indies team continues to perform poorly. When confronted with a serious challenge the West Indies team fails. This is something that is in need of seriously examination by the University of the West Indies.
Young women tend to remain focused but not the men."So, it didn't come as a surprise when Barbados' top diplomat to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Trevor Clarke, recently took a hard look at the state of the male in his Caribbean country he didn't like what he saw.Specifically, Clarke until recently a captain of Barbados' private sector in his capacity as BET's Chief Executive Officer, is worried about the lack of focus on education and the absence of discipline among young men. Just as bad is the disrespect shown to senior citizens, women and children as well as the growing indifference to the rule of law, he says.At the same time the Ambassador hailed the rapid strides of women in preparing themselves for top public and private sector jobs, and he predicted that within a few years, women would be occupying the CEO positions in many of the country's leading firms.
"I am concerned at the attitude to education among the young men," he told the Carib News in Hong Kong where he attended the recent WTO Ministerial conference on global trade. "I am concerned about the lack of discipline more so than education. You don't have to have a good education to be a good citizen but you certainly have to be disciplined to be a good citizen. Certainly, there are females who are indiscipline but it seems to be more of a male thing."What was particularly disturbing, Clarke added, was the young men's bad public behavior, whether along the boundary at cricket matches or in public transportation.
And he wonders if the weakened extended family and the attitude of teachers didn't have something to do with it."Even if you see a young man's behavior on the bus and his behavior on the sides of the cricket field, he is not on the block, but I am still disturbed by the lack of discipline and how they seem to feel quite comfortable mistreating and disrespecting older people, and mistreating and disrespecting females and children," he complained. "There is no respect for the rule of law and the discipline of getting into line and waiting your turn, all those sorts of things are happening."Clarke, a former Chairman of the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation, was the second leading public figure in Barbados to voice concerns in recent weeks about the apparent indiscipline of Bajan young men.Stephen Cozier, Scotiabank's' Managing Director in the Eastern Caribbean, said in Miami he was disturbed at the number of young Bajan men who were opting out, preferring to spend their time on the block, instead of pursuing a path to development.
Like Cozier, Clarke said that Bajan females were setting their sights on upward economic and social mobility by securing the best possible education and training for future opportunities. The Ambassador recalled being struck by the stark reality of the situation when as coordinator of a private sector trade team in Barbados he had to deal with a flood applications from qualified women seeking positions as consultants but was confronted with a paucity of suitable men two years ago."Ninety nine per cent of the applicants were female and you could have chosen anyone of four, five or six of the female applicants but you had to be very cautious about the males because of a lack of fit," he noted.
Clarke traced much of the problem to declining parental guidance and the inability of the extended family's to have a strong hand in bringing up young men."Looking at my own experiences, the role of a mother and father, uncle, aunt, a grandmother and a neighbor in managing the upbringing of a child in the village was crucial," he said. "Today, more parents are working and, therefore, pay less attention to the broader aspects of the child's development. Certainly, I pay tribute to all the teachers that I have had in my youth. They did not only pay attention to arithmetic, English, Spanish and those subjects, but they focused on deportment and they observed your behavior inside and outside of the classroom and did something about it."
The attitude of some teachers to their students was clearly problematic. "I am puzzled about the teacher thing because I am not sure they are playing the traditional role, perhaps because they see themselves as teachers of math, for instance, and not as teachers of people," he went on. "Perhaps, it may be that they no longer do that because the students are not responding and don't show that they care about these things."
Caribbean World Radio
By Tony Best
Dec 27, 2005, 15:51
It's a sorry Caribbean tale, like a recurring decimal, repeating itself throughout the Caribbean.It's one of young men in the region being surpassed by females in the classroom and on the job and that's true whether it's in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Jamaica, Guyana, the Bahamas, Antigua or Haiti."Young men in the Caribbean aren't competing as they should," said a sociologist recently.
"It's observable everywhere, even on the cricket field as the West Indies team continues to perform poorly. When confronted with a serious challenge the West Indies team fails. This is something that is in need of seriously examination by the University of the West Indies.
Young women tend to remain focused but not the men."So, it didn't come as a surprise when Barbados' top diplomat to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Trevor Clarke, recently took a hard look at the state of the male in his Caribbean country he didn't like what he saw.Specifically, Clarke until recently a captain of Barbados' private sector in his capacity as BET's Chief Executive Officer, is worried about the lack of focus on education and the absence of discipline among young men. Just as bad is the disrespect shown to senior citizens, women and children as well as the growing indifference to the rule of law, he says.At the same time the Ambassador hailed the rapid strides of women in preparing themselves for top public and private sector jobs, and he predicted that within a few years, women would be occupying the CEO positions in many of the country's leading firms.
"I am concerned at the attitude to education among the young men," he told the Carib News in Hong Kong where he attended the recent WTO Ministerial conference on global trade. "I am concerned about the lack of discipline more so than education. You don't have to have a good education to be a good citizen but you certainly have to be disciplined to be a good citizen. Certainly, there are females who are indiscipline but it seems to be more of a male thing."What was particularly disturbing, Clarke added, was the young men's bad public behavior, whether along the boundary at cricket matches or in public transportation.
And he wonders if the weakened extended family and the attitude of teachers didn't have something to do with it."Even if you see a young man's behavior on the bus and his behavior on the sides of the cricket field, he is not on the block, but I am still disturbed by the lack of discipline and how they seem to feel quite comfortable mistreating and disrespecting older people, and mistreating and disrespecting females and children," he complained. "There is no respect for the rule of law and the discipline of getting into line and waiting your turn, all those sorts of things are happening."Clarke, a former Chairman of the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation, was the second leading public figure in Barbados to voice concerns in recent weeks about the apparent indiscipline of Bajan young men.Stephen Cozier, Scotiabank's' Managing Director in the Eastern Caribbean, said in Miami he was disturbed at the number of young Bajan men who were opting out, preferring to spend their time on the block, instead of pursuing a path to development.
Like Cozier, Clarke said that Bajan females were setting their sights on upward economic and social mobility by securing the best possible education and training for future opportunities. The Ambassador recalled being struck by the stark reality of the situation when as coordinator of a private sector trade team in Barbados he had to deal with a flood applications from qualified women seeking positions as consultants but was confronted with a paucity of suitable men two years ago."Ninety nine per cent of the applicants were female and you could have chosen anyone of four, five or six of the female applicants but you had to be very cautious about the males because of a lack of fit," he noted.
Clarke traced much of the problem to declining parental guidance and the inability of the extended family's to have a strong hand in bringing up young men."Looking at my own experiences, the role of a mother and father, uncle, aunt, a grandmother and a neighbor in managing the upbringing of a child in the village was crucial," he said. "Today, more parents are working and, therefore, pay less attention to the broader aspects of the child's development. Certainly, I pay tribute to all the teachers that I have had in my youth. They did not only pay attention to arithmetic, English, Spanish and those subjects, but they focused on deportment and they observed your behavior inside and outside of the classroom and did something about it."
The attitude of some teachers to their students was clearly problematic. "I am puzzled about the teacher thing because I am not sure they are playing the traditional role, perhaps because they see themselves as teachers of math, for instance, and not as teachers of people," he went on. "Perhaps, it may be that they no longer do that because the students are not responding and don't show that they care about these things."
Caribbean World Radio
