Patrick Casserly

Patrick Casserly, the chief executive officer of e-Services Group, has charged that Jamaica's information technology sector is being hamstrung by the inadequacy of its educational system.

Casserly, whose business processing contact centre company employs over 1,300 Jamaicans, told members of the American Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica (Amcham) that the IT industry held significant promise for employment generation, but that the population had to be adequately prepared.

"The people of Jamaica are ready for new opportunities," declared Casserly at the recent Amcham luncheon held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston. "But I fear they have been hamstrung by an inadequate and ineffective education system."

Casserly's company is to date, the most successful of the information technology firms to have emerged in Jamaica over the past few years. Broadly speaking, the industry was targeted to create some 40,000 jobs by the government, but has fallen significantly short with several of the firms that were provided with significant government assistance having floundered.

One of the keys to the industry, Casserly told the Amcham members, was a recognition that the IT sector "is a people business".

"Unfortunately we continue to discount and fail to recognise the value of this virtually inexhaustible resource - the Jamaican people," he noted. "We must stop discounting the future of our people..by providing sub-standard education. Today we are reaping the fruits of decades of neglect and inaction."

The e-Services CEO added his voice to the growing debate on how best to educate the Jamaican population with the limited resources of the state. He proposed three options:

Students attending the University of the West Indies be required to pay 80 per cent of the cost. These students would have no financial obligation to the state once they have completed their studies.

Students pay 20 per cent of the cost. These will be required to pay back 60 per cent of the cost of their university education over four years after graduation.

Alternative, those student who pay 20 per cent of their cost may enter the government service for two years "at a maintenance stipend and be relieved of any financial responsibility to the government and Jamaica. Their service will be as tutors in the primary and early education school system nation wide".

Casserly's argument is that the investment in tertiary education should not be limited. "Rather the investment must be brought to account through the channeling of resources to the gaping void that exists in tutoring and mentoring in the primary schools."

Casserly, who was this year named Business Leader for
2003 by the Jamaica Observer newspaper, started e-Services four years ago at the Montego Bay Freeport. The company now operates out of Kingston and Montego Bay and is expanding into the Eastern Caribbean.

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