Underemployment leading to student drop off at UWI

Seasoned educator Dr Ian Marshall has raised concerns about declining enrolment among mature and part-time students at the University of the West Indies (UWI), pointing to limited job opportunities and underemployment as key deterrents.

Dr Marshall, who spoke to Barbados TODAY in response to news from UWI that they are seeing fewer mature and part-time students enrolling at the institution, said while several factors may be contributing to the trend, the inability of graduates to secure meaningful employment remains a major issue.

“Just last week in fact, we were discussing that in terms of sustainability of tertiary education. The reality is that persons while there, while they acquire their first degrees or even second degrees, the reality is that there are many people who cannot find employment, or if they find employment, the employment is what you would call underemployment because they’re not being allowed to use the skills and the knowledge and so on they would have acquired,” he said.

He explained that this was discouraging potential students from investing in further education, particularly those considering returning to school later in life.

Dr Marshall suggested that one way to address the challenge was to rethink traditional degree offerings, placing greater emphasis on interdisciplinary programmes aligned with labour market needs.

“We were suggesting what can be done to address that situation, is that instead of having persons doing just the traditional degrees, you can have them doing degrees that are a blend of different areas, so that you look to see what is required out there in the marketplace and then you create a course or a programme that will allow you to move seamlessly into those particular positions that are available,” he said.

He also underscored the broader issue of graduate saturation within the local job market, noting that Barbados is producing more qualified individuals than it can absorb.

“The reality that we are facing right now is that we are educating our people and many of them, we don’t have the spaces to absorb them, so we have to start thinking about how we can export our qualified people,” Dr Marshall said.

He pointed out that facilitating opportunities for Barbadians to work overseas while contributing to the local economy through remittances could help ease the pressure.

“So instead of having them in Barbados…we have to start thinking about how we can facilitate people, getting qualified and then being able to work outside of Barbados in a way that they can still repatriate monies and so on to the country,” he explained.

Addressing concerns about “brain drain,” Dr Marshall argued that the concept may not fully apply in the current context.

“People will talk about brain drain and so on, but brain drain is only relevant if you have persons leaving your shores and there’s a gap on the island… right now we have so many people… so they won’t be brain drain because you’re simply taking the excess and deploying the excess elsewhere,” he said.

To better align education with employment outcomes, Dr Marshall underscored the importance of stronger collaboration between tertiary institutions and the private sector.

He said embedding internships into degree programmes would allow students to gain practical experience while studying.

“One of the solutions was to have partnerships and arrangements with the private sector so that you are able to develop programmes and ensure that once [students finish] the process of completing programs, they go seamlessly into the marketplace.

“In fact, you can even include in there as well a series of internships so that when the persons are doing the degrees… you get the opportunity to go into that part of the business place and you are interned there and you’re able to get your feet wet,” Dr Marshall noted.

Dr Marshall also addressed the island’s push towards technology and innovation, commending government efforts but cautioning that Barbados remains behind in practical application.

He warned that rapid technological advancement means students can quickly fall behind industry standards.

“The reality is that they have looked at even the same robotics and the same technical areas… what they have recognised is that [they] are able to do programmes that allow them to be creators as opposed to the end users.

“But the reality is that by the time you get those persons qualified, the robotics knowledge base would have moved on so far… when you come into the real workspace now, you still have to be trained because you are sometimes years behind what is happening in the industry,” Dr Marshall lamented.

He pointed to regional examples where innovation is being applied in real time, such as using robotics to support agriculture, and stressed that Barbados must improve its infrastructure to remain competitive.

“It is good to say we have done this, but unless you’re going to allow those people to be able to be at the cutting edge… we are still going to be behind the ball,” he said.