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First time i have read any thing by Tufton.. I beleive I went to school with Redwood... My question is if 70% of tertiary trained Jamaicans migrate post education why should Jamaica subsidies tertiary education... But then I missed grade 2, 3, 4,5,6.....
for u Kanadians what is Rev Redwood going to do in Kanada ?
Part 1
aying Goodbye And Diaspora Relations
Published: Sunday | May 19, 20130 Comments
Jamaica's grim economic realities mean the departure hall of the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston will always be busy with persons seeking a way out. - File
Christopher Tufton, Contributor
Former president of the Senate, the Rev Stanley Redwood, served his last sitting in the Senate a few Fridays after confirming that he would relocate to Canada with his family. The senator, who hails from the South West St Elizabeth constituency, argued personal family reasons for his decision, a position most Jamaicans can relate to and accept.
Rev Redwood and I have had many personal encounters outside of the Senate, having both contested the SW St Elizabeth constituency in September 2007. His mother is a charming lady still residing in the parish, and the senator has been a model citizen, achieving academically and positively impacting many lives in his teaching profession, his church, and other community-outreach initiatives. Jamaica should wish him well, even as we are sorry to see him leave.
Rev Redwood's departure from the Senate is an interesting symbolism of Jamaica's leadership challenge in an increasingly mobile population and difficult national economic and social environment. Here is someone who has obviously done well for himself through hard work, demonstrated a commitment to service, elevated to the most important office in the Upper House, in the interest of that call to serve, and served up to his departure with distinction. His tenure was cut short by better opportunities and possibilities for self and family outside of Jamaica.
Is this a case where the call to serve is superseded by the need to ensure personal and family well-being? Or a decision to serve in another capacity, elsewhere in the world. Rev Redwood said he had applied for permanent status some five years before and was unsure up to notification by the Canadians when he would have been called. He has also expressed an interest in serving in other capacities in the Jamaican diaspora.
The truth is that the former senator's decision to relocate from Jamaica is more typical than abnormal for Jamaicans who have done well academically and feel they deserve a better life than what the country offers.
DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
It's reported that more than 70 per cent of Jamaicans who have had tertiary-level training in Jamaica eventually emigrate. This had been a double-edged sword for us as a country. In the first case, Jamaica has lost the opportunity to benefit directly and in the traditional way from our trained nationals, many of whom have benefited from state-funded education.
The fact is that despite the challenges of Jamaica's education system, on a per-capita basis, government allocation to education is one of the highest in the hemisphere and there is a major skewing of that allocation to higher levels of learning. The typical university student receives about 80 per cent subsidy from the Jamaican taxpayer. There are those who argue that it is a major loss to Jamaica when we experience this massive brain drain of our intellectual capacity, trained substantially by taxpayer resources.
Others argue that the world has changed to where labour mobility is increasingly a feature of modern societies, particularly when that labour has technical capacity to offer in a competitive global marketplace.
The identified benefits of our large diaspora community are, of course, the large inflows of remittances to support family and friends residing here. Remittances have emerged as Jamaica's largest foreign exchange earner, competing only with tourism receipts, although having a greater impact on poverty because remittance flows are so diversely dispersed among the lower socio-economic groups.
A significant amount of Jamaica's remittances are tantamount to welfare payments to support Jamaicans who are either unemployed or underemployed. Assuming Jamaica did not have such a large diaspora, would these beneficiaries be among the unemployed, and what would have been the social and economic consequences of a larger population with similar anaemic growth since Independence?
Alternatively, it may have been possible for Jamaica to have grown and developed more substantially if those who have emigrated over the years opted to stay and become a part of the leadership and entrepreneurial class needed to have moved the country forward.
NEED FOR DIASPORA AFFAIRS POLICY
These and other scenarios bring into sharp focus the need for Jamaica to develop a more comprehensive policy perspective on diaspora affairs. To date, we have talked more than acted on issues which have given rise to such a large diaspora population and how to mobilise this influential group towards causes that could build Jamaica, and even discouraging the desire among the majority of the Jamaican population to emigrate.
Ever since the launch of the Diaspora Advisory Board back in 2004, theJamaican Government's approach to diaspora affairs seems to have been based on anecdotal evidence and, as a consequence, is very difficult to assess for success or failure. This is because no methodical examination has been done to determine the contribution of the diaspora to their home and host countries, and how that contribution can be enhanced.
Up to this point, diaspora affairs have involved trips to and from Jamaica for closed-door or community meetings, where important issues have been raised but little done to facilitate better and more precise understanding of the issues and steps taken to address them.
An annual general meeting of the diaspora community is not enough if when we get together we raise the same issues and cannot show results.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Jamaica's diaspora is as large as the population of Jamaica and that this group has significant reach in North America and, to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe.
Too often, successful members of the Jamaican diaspora are recognised by the country only after they have achieved significant success and contributed tangibly to some cause in Jamaica, while the hundreds of thousands of those Jamaicans who send their small amounts back to Jamaica amounting to more than US$2 billion per year do not feel appreciated.
for u Kanadians what is Rev Redwood going to do in Kanada ?
Part 1
aying Goodbye And Diaspora Relations
Published: Sunday | May 19, 20130 Comments
Jamaica's grim economic realities mean the departure hall of the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston will always be busy with persons seeking a way out. - File
Christopher Tufton, Contributor
Former president of the Senate, the Rev Stanley Redwood, served his last sitting in the Senate a few Fridays after confirming that he would relocate to Canada with his family. The senator, who hails from the South West St Elizabeth constituency, argued personal family reasons for his decision, a position most Jamaicans can relate to and accept.
Rev Redwood and I have had many personal encounters outside of the Senate, having both contested the SW St Elizabeth constituency in September 2007. His mother is a charming lady still residing in the parish, and the senator has been a model citizen, achieving academically and positively impacting many lives in his teaching profession, his church, and other community-outreach initiatives. Jamaica should wish him well, even as we are sorry to see him leave.
Rev Redwood's departure from the Senate is an interesting symbolism of Jamaica's leadership challenge in an increasingly mobile population and difficult national economic and social environment. Here is someone who has obviously done well for himself through hard work, demonstrated a commitment to service, elevated to the most important office in the Upper House, in the interest of that call to serve, and served up to his departure with distinction. His tenure was cut short by better opportunities and possibilities for self and family outside of Jamaica.
Is this a case where the call to serve is superseded by the need to ensure personal and family well-being? Or a decision to serve in another capacity, elsewhere in the world. Rev Redwood said he had applied for permanent status some five years before and was unsure up to notification by the Canadians when he would have been called. He has also expressed an interest in serving in other capacities in the Jamaican diaspora.
The truth is that the former senator's decision to relocate from Jamaica is more typical than abnormal for Jamaicans who have done well academically and feel they deserve a better life than what the country offers.
DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
It's reported that more than 70 per cent of Jamaicans who have had tertiary-level training in Jamaica eventually emigrate. This had been a double-edged sword for us as a country. In the first case, Jamaica has lost the opportunity to benefit directly and in the traditional way from our trained nationals, many of whom have benefited from state-funded education.
The fact is that despite the challenges of Jamaica's education system, on a per-capita basis, government allocation to education is one of the highest in the hemisphere and there is a major skewing of that allocation to higher levels of learning. The typical university student receives about 80 per cent subsidy from the Jamaican taxpayer. There are those who argue that it is a major loss to Jamaica when we experience this massive brain drain of our intellectual capacity, trained substantially by taxpayer resources.
Others argue that the world has changed to where labour mobility is increasingly a feature of modern societies, particularly when that labour has technical capacity to offer in a competitive global marketplace.
The identified benefits of our large diaspora community are, of course, the large inflows of remittances to support family and friends residing here. Remittances have emerged as Jamaica's largest foreign exchange earner, competing only with tourism receipts, although having a greater impact on poverty because remittance flows are so diversely dispersed among the lower socio-economic groups.
A significant amount of Jamaica's remittances are tantamount to welfare payments to support Jamaicans who are either unemployed or underemployed. Assuming Jamaica did not have such a large diaspora, would these beneficiaries be among the unemployed, and what would have been the social and economic consequences of a larger population with similar anaemic growth since Independence?
Alternatively, it may have been possible for Jamaica to have grown and developed more substantially if those who have emigrated over the years opted to stay and become a part of the leadership and entrepreneurial class needed to have moved the country forward.
NEED FOR DIASPORA AFFAIRS POLICY
These and other scenarios bring into sharp focus the need for Jamaica to develop a more comprehensive policy perspective on diaspora affairs. To date, we have talked more than acted on issues which have given rise to such a large diaspora population and how to mobilise this influential group towards causes that could build Jamaica, and even discouraging the desire among the majority of the Jamaican population to emigrate.
Ever since the launch of the Diaspora Advisory Board back in 2004, theJamaican Government's approach to diaspora affairs seems to have been based on anecdotal evidence and, as a consequence, is very difficult to assess for success or failure. This is because no methodical examination has been done to determine the contribution of the diaspora to their home and host countries, and how that contribution can be enhanced.
Up to this point, diaspora affairs have involved trips to and from Jamaica for closed-door or community meetings, where important issues have been raised but little done to facilitate better and more precise understanding of the issues and steps taken to address them.
An annual general meeting of the diaspora community is not enough if when we get together we raise the same issues and cannot show results.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Jamaica's diaspora is as large as the population of Jamaica and that this group has significant reach in North America and, to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe.
Too often, successful members of the Jamaican diaspora are recognised by the country only after they have achieved significant success and contributed tangibly to some cause in Jamaica, while the hundreds of thousands of those Jamaicans who send their small amounts back to Jamaica amounting to more than US$2 billion per year do not feel appreciated.
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