Husbands: Move beyond rote learning

Minister of Training and Tertiary Education Sandra Husbands has warned that Caribbean nations risk economic ruin if they do not move urgently to foster a culture of continuous learning and education.

Speaking at the opening of the Caribbean Tertiary Level Personnel Association’s (CTLPA) 2025 Annual Regional Conference on Wednesday at Divi Southwinds Resort, Husbands said the rapid pace of global change quickly renders present learning obsolete.

“The world is changing at a pace that it is difficult for us to keep up with,” she told representatives from across the region. “In terms of learning and education, what you’ve learned last year may not serve you next year. Our need to create a people who are wedded and locked in step with continuous professional learning is an absolute must for the survival of our economies.”

She stressed that simply producing students who can memorise and repeat information will not suffice. Instead, the focus must be on cultivating innovative thinkers capable of applying knowledge to solve real-world problems.

“If we fail to produce students who understand that they must continuously improve; if we fail to produce students who do not understand how to innovate; If we produce students that merely seek to regurgitate rather than apply knowledge to create new solutions for our nations, our nations are going to fail,” she warned. “That is how serious the moment we are in is.”

Husbands underscored the role of tertiary institutions as “strategic weapons” for national development, helping societies adjust to shifting global realities and remain competitive.

She stressed, “We must force our way to the table, and as Shirley Chisholm would say, if you have to bring your own stool with you to sit at the table, you have to bring your own seating to be there.”

To meet the demands of a fast-evolving world, the minister said educational institutions must engage in “horizon scanning” to anticipate emerging trends, technologies, and disruptions. Without this foresight, she cautioned, nations will fall behind.

Equally important, she noted, is the need for educators to remain closely attuned to the lived realities of students, especially in an era where young people increasingly exist in closed digital spaces.

“Every staff person must be checking and listening to the student, understanding what is happening out in the little ecosystems in which they live because one of the difficulties we have is that our students are no longer part of a broad general public that will listen to the radio, that will read the newspaper. They’re all busy buried in small little systems online, where they’re echoing and re-echoing their own understanding of the world and not necessarily letting in fresh information and new knowledge. Therefore, the intergenerational transfer of information is not happening,” she said.

This disconnect, she said, is weakening intergenerational communication and threatens national cohesion. “You can chart as many national strategic plans as you like,” she added, “but if you cannot penetrate your population with understanding, it will be hard to govern.”

Husbands called on policymakers and educators not to dismiss the younger generation but to make a genuine effort to engage them meaningfully.

“This is a generation that is completely different from our own, but what we must not do is shut ourselves off from them and say ‘I don’t understand them. They will learn’. The problem is when they take the time to learn, if you’re not careful, they will burn down what we have already set up. So it is imperative that we open our hearts, our spirits to understand them, to talk with them, to listen to them. To get people that you know explain them to us and then we plan with them in mind. Because they are the centre of our world,” she stressed. (SB)