Human Resource Development: The Challenges of Health, Education and Employment Relations in the Caribbean

• Author: Keith Mitchell
• Pages: 8-16

8HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Human Resource Development:

The Challenges of Health, Education and

Employment Relations in the Caribbean

In an era when human capital is replacing physical capital as the main

determinant of economic growth and development, the change is having

an impact on many aspects of our economic lives. As the knowledge-based

economy becomes more pervasive, so too will the importance of learning and

the use of learning. Thus, it is not only the availability of knowledge that

matters but also its quality and its utilisation. They will be the critical

determinants of the international competitiveness of our Caribbean economies.

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Despite the economic difficulties experienced by several Caribbean

economies in the 1980s, the proportion of gross national product (GNP)

allocated to education increased steadily. In 1980, approximately 3.7 per cent

of total Caribbean GNP was allocated to education. By 1989, this proportion

had increased to just under 5 per cent. This figure, which is based on the

author’s own estimates and those of the World Bank (1993), compares

favourably to expenditures of 3.4 per cent for Latin America and 4.2 per cent

for Africa. Clearly, the Caribbean countries did not neglect education

expenditure during this period.

By the 1990s, however, the progress of the 1980s was being undone,

largely by the deteriorating macroeconomic circumstances, which were

characterised by marked slowdowns in capital expenditures on education. As

a consequence, borrowing from international financing institutions began to

play a more important role. The principal sources were the Inter-American

Development Bank and the World Bank. A recent survey indicates that

virtually all the countries of the region have had to participate in one or more

of these programmes. Though the share of education investment has rebounded

in many of the countries of the Caribbean, the level of financing generated

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