Education is the best investment
Dear Editor,
Education is vital to a nation’s competitiveness. I believe the Government of Jamaica must revisit the roads travelled by the four Asian Tigers and prioritise education.
The four Asian Tigers, comprising Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, have been maintaining exceptionally high growth rates since the early 1960s and weathered many crises.
The following facts are noteworthy:
(1) Jamaica became independent in 1962, when the four Asian Tigers were relatively poor.
(2) The four Asian Tigers blended their cheap labour with educational reform into sources of productive workforce.
(3) The four Asian Tigers were not immune to the Asian Currency Crisis (ACC) of 1997. Korea in particular had to seek help from the International Monetary Fund and became part of the US$40 billion programme bailing out not just Korea but also Indonesia and Thailand.
(4) Korea, united as a nation, became one of the first to come out of the ACC. The nation values not just industry but also education. The remuneration of a kindergarten teacher in Korea is on par with a university lecturer.
(5) Taiwan, with over 160 post-secondary institutions, for example, universities and colleges, is a strong pool for a highly educated bilingual workforce for world-class industrial corporations like Foxconn, YueYuen, which are the world’s # 1 suppliers to Apple, Nokia, Adidas and Nike.
(6) Hong Kong and Singapore, with several worldleading universities, have become two of the first economies coming out of the global financial tsunamis which began in 2009. The universities are Hong Kong University, National University of Singapore, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Nanyang Technological University.
(7) All four Asian Tigers have a highly educated and skilled workforce and have specialised in areas where they had a competitive advantage. For example, Hong Kong and Singapore became worldleading international financial centres, while South Korea and Taiwan became world leaders in information technology.
Education is the surest investment one can ever make in life. Jamaica must single out education as a means for improving the country’s competitiveness and also find ways to retain not just highly skilled nurses, but also world-class students, teachers and university lecturers.
Lewis Leung
Hong Kong, China
lewis_leung67@yahoo.com
