Hilary Robertson- Hickling
A PIONEERING Jamaican financial institution recently announced that it was expanding beyond the English-speaking Caribbean region to establish business in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and then to the Caribbean diasporas in North America. This was the result of the money market of which this organisation was a part maturing. It was time to expand into new markets for its survival.
The future is already here and we need to prepare ourselves, our organisations and our country for the present and the future. Every Jamaican must become multi-skilled and multilingual if he or she is not to become obsolete. A future in the knowledge society requires a sound technical base in some field, cross-cultural skills, and emotional intelligence as well as other skills.
It is not only necessary to understand our neighbours' languages and cultures, but also to understand our own strengths and weaknesses so that we may improve ourselves. We also have to think beyond concepts such as small islands and the notion that 'somebody must speak English'. At school and at home we have to make more and more effort to realise that America and Europe are not the world.
TOP WASTING THEIR TIME
I hope that many young people now in high school are planning to study Japanese, Chinese and Arabic. Young people have to stop wasting their time in high school as second chances for an education are expensive, few and far between. Their counterparts in other parts of the world are getting ready to make globalisation work for them. There are scholarships to many countries in the world, although some are not taken up, and these scholarships are a window into the future, as the first year of the programme is usually devoted to learning the language. There our young people have the opportunity to broaden their horizons, develop lifelong relationships and explore entrepreneurial opportunities.
Cross-cultural experiences will have to become the norm, not just the purview of the well-to-do. Those seeking for jobs can search on the Internet, in the newspapers and elsewhere, and we must also learn from people of the many nationalities that have made Jamaica their home. So whether you work for a transnational company or a local or regional one you have to be prepared for the future. One where diversity is welcomed and people know themselves and therefore are confident and secure to work with others.
This is not a time to be frightened, just a time to be prepared, and those persons who migrate can also lend their knowledge and expertise so that we can mange the future collectively.
Hilary Robertson-Hickling is a lecturer in the Department of Social Studies, UWI, Mona.
