THE EDITOR, Madam:
SO OFTEN, we hear stories about our youths in this country. Sometimes there are positive success stories of academic excellence or great sporting and entertainment successes.
Often times our young people are associated with crimes and uncomely, irresponsible behaviour. However, what we do not hear about are the stories of silent discrimination and injustice that our young people are faced with primarily in the working environment and yes, in our education sector in this country.
Our young graduates and professionals are being marginalised in our own country! Foreigners with the same qualifications are being placed in jobs and are given better salaries than our own people. I will point out that as a Jamaican, in a lot of cases for you to get a well-paid job you would have to have studied abroad at some point. You then stand a better chance of being selected than someone who studied locally. This obviously speaks to the level of confidence or lack thereof, that is placed in our nation's education system.
We welcome foreigners to work in our country, as we prefer to import labour rather than use our own people. We gladly import foreigners to work for us in our own hotels, in our hospitals, even in our schools and government institutions while, qualified and available Jamaicans are sitting at home without jobs unemployed! Jamaicans are not privileged as some other countries with free education and so immediately discrimination is present.
The few scholarships that are offered are highly competitive and as everything else goes in this country there is unfair practice and corruption in the selection of candidates. Therefore, loans are the only means for the majority of students to afford an education. Without jobs, how are we to pay back the loans to the banks and bureau, which begin charging high interests on a daily basis on these large sums of money immediately after you finish school? I do not think I am selfish or unduly unreasonable, in expressing my views about this crisis of injustice towards myself and other young Jamaicans who have studied so hard to get an education.
We still have to be repaying our student's loan and a lot of us are without jobs for which we are qualified, but cannot get because we are required to have years of experience.
What has become increasingly evident is that with this constant importation of foreign personnel, the job vacancies are being filled and many Jamaicans are being forced out or ignored by Jamaican employers. The ending of 1998, the government imported some 100 Cuban teachers to work in our primary schools. What happened to our university graduates? Were any of our teachers sent to Cuba as part of the cultural exchange?
In the hospitals, we seem to be overrun by Nigerian doctors, and at the universities: researchers and lecturers. Not many of us are given the equal opportunity to work in their country.
Jamaica is considered the land of the free, but I hope it is not the land of the free for all; especially if you are a foreigner or you have studied abroad.
I am etc.,
NATASHA JAMES
4 Cardiff Hall
Runaway Bay
E-mail:
tashajames@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 271,
Runaway Bay, St Ann
Via Go-Jamaica
