Students Must Be Proficient in Math, Science and Technology – High Commissioner

High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (UK), Her Excellency Aloun Ndombet Assamba, says students should ensure proficiency in Mathematics, Science and Technology, in order to fit into the jobs to come, and to be able to create work.

Delivering the recent Merl Grove High School 90th Anniversary Karram-Speid Lecture, held at the Rehoboth Gospel Assembly, in St. Andrew, Mrs. Ndombet Assamba said most of the jobs that will be available in another decade will be new, and technology based.

She told the students that the creative economy is where Jamaica has the best competitive edge for job creation, “leading to more opportunities than were available when I was a student here at Merl Grove.”

“We must change the way we see the world, and equip ourselves with the necessary skills and tools to respond to it,” she added.

Stressing that the new jobs on the horizon will require “significant input of creativity,” the High Commissioner said they will also require young people to be proactive and assertive, especially when it comes to science and technology.

“Ensure that you make the most of your education, and the opportunities that you have today. Everything you learn now, will have some relevance later in life,” the High Commissioner told the students, while urging them to take along with them critical thinking to the world of work.

“Don’t wait to be told what to do. You will never get ahead by waiting for someone to tell you what to do; it is better to do too much that too little,” she said, and encouraged them to read as widely as possible, and to emulate achievers.

The High Commissioner lauded the “strides” that Jamaica has made in developing and expanding tertiary education, noting that not too long ago “high school education was a privilege for the wealthy few.”

Crediting the education policy of the Michael Manley-led administration in the 1970s, Mrs. Ndombet Assamba said it was an “inspired effort to create avenues for more ordinary Jamaicans to be educated.”

“This trend has continued and the result is that we now have more schools at different levels of the education system,” she pointed out.