Learning to Learn: the Caribbean Citizen-worker in the Twenty-first Century

• Author: Robert Gregory, Denise Collymore and Marlene Fisher
• Pages: 58-69

58 HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Learning to Learn:

The Caribbean Citizen-worker in

the Twenty-first Century

Our single greatest challenge is to equip ourselves for this new age with new and better

skills, with knowledge and understanding. (British Department for Education and

Employment, 1998)

A knowledge worker needs one thing only: to learn how to learn’

Peter F. Drucker, Inc. Magazine, March 1, 1998)

The issues surrounding the Caribbean worker and his/her ability to compete

globally cannot be addressed if we do not first take a look at the history

of our education system. As is often said, we cannot begin to look at where

we are going (or where we are to go) if we do not first know where we are

coming from. In this chapter, we examine some of the challenges facing the

Caribbean as it tries to restructure its educational system in an effort to cope

with the changing international economy and society. We begin with a brief

overview of the colonial education system in the Caribbean. This section lays

the foundations for a discussion of the requirements for a new “learner-centred”

educational system. The next three sections then focus on central elements of

a reconfigured educational system by considering, in turn, the role of teacher

education, the role of technical and vocational education, the role of parents

and guardians and the philosophy of “lifelong learning.” The concluding

section ties these ideas together by exploring the possible contribution of a

reconfigured educational system to the production of a citizen better able to

contribute organisational and general economic competitiveness.

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The origin of the Caribbean’s system of education and training is rooted

in a colonial societal and plantation economic context. The philosophy and

pursuant system of education and training were deliberately fashioned to suit

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