Jamaicans are well used to the concept that “necessity is the mother of invention” and that in times of hardship it makes sense to “tun yu han’ mek fashion”.

Generations ago, for example, small farmers on the dry, steep slopes and plains of south St Elizabeth and neighbouring south Manchester found a way, by trial and error, to survive and even prosper in an environment seemingly unsuitable to agriculture.

They developed their own form of dry farming using dried grass, usually guinea grass, to help retain, for as long as possible, moisture and nutrients in the soil and suppressing unwanted weed growth. The grass carpet had the added value of reducing erosion, maintaining the integrity of the soil when the savage floods came.

Necessity ensured that, though they operated in conditions that were hostile, farmers on those arid lands of south-central and south-western Jamaica earned a reputation for outdoing domestic food producers elsewhere.

We are reminded of that small farming experience by the heart-warming story in yesterday’s Sunday Observer of university students who have developed a furniture design to deal with the cramped spaces in which students are often forced to study.

We are told that industrial technology students at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) have created a bed prototype with multi-capacities, including as a study table and display area.

Asked to come up with solutions for problems being experienced in society, the students fell back to problems they themselves and their colleagues experienced while trying to study in home spaces so small that the bed is the only option. The trouble with the bed though, is that sleep all too soon arrives with the study undone.

Ingenious folding allows the prototype bed to double as table/desk capable of seating three people, as well as stand for a television and/or bookshelf. There is even space for hanging clothes.

The commercial value is obviously real and the group are now looking to patent their product. In the true tradition of scholarship, they are assessing ways to use not only wood but also lighter materials to improve and diversify their creation.

They would do well to consider that not just students but also the wider community could have need for such innovative furniture solutions.

Education Minister Mr Ronnie Thwaites often speaks out on the need for schools to twin traditional academic teaching to skills and technology training. This is in order to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex world.

It’s a world in which traditional jobs can be numbingly hard to find; a world in which the young must be intrepidly creative. They must be able to think and act innovatively, not only in old-style ‘nine to five’ jobs, but in the building of their own businesses to provide marketable goods and services.

We say ‘big up’ to institutions such as UTech, which are striving to provide that uplifting and very necessary learning environment for young people.