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UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com,
UN/ -
24 June 2006 - Did
Caribbean immigration
from
Haiti
play a role with the
leader of seven suspects
arrested in Miami
suspected of a terrorist
threat?
In most cases,
one would not suspect
that the
Caribbean
-- hundreds of islands
for exotic vacations --
could become a breeding
ground for clandestine
terrorist movements.
However,
when we consider the
ease at which illegal
immigrants move through
these islands, from one
nation to another,
undetected, it questions these
assumptions.
Caribbean
governments are battling
growing social ills
associated with
inadequate education
systems, the lack of
workforce development
programs and highly
ineffective immigration
policies and procedures.
Might
ignoring these problems
lead to unrest and
future extremism?
The
social ills within and
between these small
developing countries,
with people of mostly
African decent, have
been steadily growing
for a number of years
but really began around
the time they acquired
independence or
self-governance.
Around
the time when Land Grant
Institutions and
historically black
colleges were being
established in the U.S.
in the 1800’s, most
neighboring countries in
the Caribbean, including
The Bahamas, had very
small populations and
were considered
insignificant British
owned colonial societies
where only the sons and
daughters of plantation
owners were even taught
to read, much less
attend a university in
the United Kingdom.
Even
when the
American
Community College
Systems were being
established, these
countries still
functioned under British
administration with
severely limited access
to education at any
level.
In
the early to
mid-twentieth century,
with the establishment
of the government owned
and managed high school,
small numbers of local
native sons and
daughters, mostly of
mixed race and a few of
pure African decent,
were allowed to complete
a high school education
and go abroad for
tertiary level training.
Most
of these natives became
British trained lawyers,
teachers or medical
practitioners.
It was the
lawyers that led the
political charge for
self-governance in the
mid-Twentieth
century and eventually
independence, given by
Act of the British
Parliament.
These former
colonial states became
members of the
Commonwealth
of
Countries.
Of
course, these newly
formed self-governing
Commonwealth countries
moved quickly toward
establishing access to
education for the masses
as a means of securing
the country’s future.
Ironically, the system
of managing this new era
in development remained
the same inherited
colonial form of
administration.
Early
writers, researchers and
public policy analysts
have warned that such
behaviors were
superficial and would
eventually result in
grave social and
economic consequences.
Kooperman
and Rosenberg (1977)
indicated that “some
of these developing
countries hastily
wrapped personnel,
procedure, habits,
structure and values
inherited from the
recent past, in the
garments of new
nationhood. This was
hardly more than a
renaming of old colonial
styles of law and order
with the
“managerial” sticker
required to develop the
former colony.”
According
to Conyers (1981),
“most developing
countries attempted to
reform their
administrative
structures in an effort
to make them effective
in the planning and
implementation of
development programs.”
This approach “created
contradictions resulting
in operational
paralysis: the ushering
in of modernization
through accelerated
socio-economic change,
and latent social
control (the conscious
effort to slow down or
even stifle change,
especially profound
change” (see Seitz’s
1980 study of Iran).
Today,
after some twenty,
thirty, and in some
instance in excess of
forty years of being
either members of the
Commonwealth nor having
acquired independence as
a republic, all of these
post-colonial Caribbean
countries continue to
grapple with
increasingly severe
social and educational
concerns, coupled with a
brain-drain of
professional manpower in
areas like the sciences,
technology, education
and healthcare.
There
is also a northward
migration of untrained
laborers; thus creating
demographic shifts
associated with new and
yet undefined social
dilemmas for the
governments of the more
northern countries; or
islands to the immediate
southeast of the United
States.
Caribbean
countries that are doing well in the tourism industry become magnets
for illegal immigrants.
Simultaneously,
success of the tourism
industry in these
countries creates a lack
of interest in
educational attainment
on the part of the
countries younger
generation.
The
tourist dollar is viewed
as more accessible than
excellence in education
and training.
In Turks and
Caicos Islands, south of
The Bahamas
and north of Haiti, more than fifty
percent of the
population is made up of
illegal Haitian
immigrants.
In
The
Bahamas, the rapidly increasing
illegal immigrant
populations consist of
migrants from Turks
and
Caicos Islands,
Haiti
and
Jamaica.
Here, the
tremendous buildup of
its own illegal
immigrant populations
combined with its
numerous island
archipelagic layout,
have resulted in
incidents of violent
clashes between natives
and immigrants; the
establishment of
well-protected,
self-sustaining, illegal
immigrant cities; and an
underground for forged
documents that extends
to networks in South
Florida.
These
conditions far exceed
the government’s
limited capacity to
control illegal movement
into and through the
country.
In numerous
instances, “raids”
on illegal immigrants
have been thwarted by
legal immigrants that
have risen to senior
ranks throughout the
country’s civil
service and policing
agencies; while some
Justices of the Peace,
provide forged birth
certificates for a
price.
When
it comes to education
and training, the
immigrants are excelling
beyond the performance
of the natives.
Today,
most Caribbean
governments are at a
loss as far as
developing effective
immigration and national
education/workforce
development policies.
The
inherited and
ineffective colonial
methods of central
administrative control
for all government
institutions, including
elementary, secondary
and tertiary levels of
education continue to be
enforced by career civil
servants, despite the
continued failures of
these administrative
methods.
The
national grade point
average for children in Bahamas
public schools remains a
D- as the government
continues to ponder
means to provide a
trained workforce to
meet the increasing
needs of a rapidly
expanding tourism
industry.
The
politicians have come to
rely solely on guidance
and direction from civil
servants and
multinational donor
agencies for solving
national workforce
development, social and
education issues.
Sadly, agencies
such as the U.S.
Department of
Labor/Bureau of
International Labor
Affairs, Worldwide
Strategies, Inc., or the
International Labor
Organization seem very
unaware or incapable of
addressing these kinds
of challenges.
Recently,
in 2005, the Caribbean
Association of National
Training Agencies
(CANTA) published its
first issue of the
Caribbean Journal of
Technical and Vocational
Education and Training
(TVET) for Workforce
Development.
It
focuses on workforce
training and development
for international
competitiveness,
training and labor
productivity,
competency-based
training and the role of
technical and vocational
training in the CARICOM
Single Market and
Economy, etc.
The
emphasis, however, on
the CARICOM Single
Market and Economy in
the current atmosphere
of uncontrollable
illegal immigration
issues, only stimulates
mistrust and suggests
that economically
successful
Caribbean
countries will be
expected to bare the
weight of the less
successful countries.
Again, these
Caribbean
countries are left
pulling at straws.
From
an early development
perspective, a
successful
bureaucratization would
have required a number
of absent
characteristics: a tax
base, an expanding
economic base, political
legitimacy, a relatively
open society, a
political structure
capable of governing,
and definitely,
professionally trained
manpower.
The absence of
such qualities and
conditions presented a
paradox leaving
governing and managing
capabilities most scarce
where they were most
needed in the central
administrations and at
the grassroots level,
the workforce.
It
is clear that these
countries’ lack of
expertise at addressing
these social ills, are
due in part to the
tremendous influence and
lack of understanding of
many multinational donor
agencies.
The
role of the United
Nations should be
enhanced and we should
be seeking means to
strengthen and hold
multinational agencies
and developing countries
more accountable.
To some degree,
the problems become
further exacerbated when
multinational donor
agencies are not held
more accountable; just
as they do not demand
more accountability on
the part of developing
countries.
Would
it be fair to state that
the current and
projected social and
economic concerns
associated with
workforce projections
and immigration issues
in the U.S.
have and will continue
to escalate as long as
we continue to focus on
U.S.-based outcomes
only?
The
issues associated with
illegal immigration will
elevate the already
catastrophic workforce
needs projections in the
United States.
Both are directly
and indirectly linked
with a part of the
solution that rests with
multinational donor
agencies and the
governments of these
developing countries.
DrRodneySmith@MaximsNews.com
Dr.
Rodney D. Smith
Dr.
Rodney D.
Smith is a
senior advisor on
International Education
with MaximsNews
Network.
He is an expert
on the administration
and funding of higher
education in developing
countries, institutional
strategic planning and
workforce development.
He has served as
president and CEO of
American and overseas
higher education
institutions and in
other senior University
positions. Dr. Rodney
Smith is also on a
number of boards and
commissions, including
the Council for Adult
and Experiential
Learning.
References
Caribbean
Journal of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) for
Workforce Development.
For additional
information contact,
Chairman of CANTA, 6B
Oxford
Road,
Kingston, 5, Jamaica
or info@heart-nta.org
Conyers,
D; ‘Administration in China: Some Preliminary
Observations’, Journal
of Administration
Overseas, Vol. 16,
1977
Conyers,
D; ‘Decentralization
for Regional
Development: A
Comparative Study on
Tanzania
, Zambia
and
Papua New Guinea’, Public
Administration and
Development, Vol. 1,
1981
Kooperman,
L; and Rosenberg, S;
‘The British
Administration Legacy in
Kenya
and
Ghana’, International
Review of Administrative
Sciences, Vol. 43, 1977
Seitz,
J. L; ‘The Failure of
U.S.
Technical Assistance In
Public Administration:
The Iranian Case’, Public
Administration Review,
Vol. 40, 1980
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