Report after report exhorts us to improve linkages with tourism and foster greater value added benefits from tourism. The inescapable and chilling conclusion is simply that it will not be enough unless accompanied by a comprehensive strategy to foster other economic linkages, encourage investment, improve education, invest in infrastructure and prioritize resource allocation.

The most basic problem is that The Bahamas is not creating enough jobs. Policy makers and businessmen can no longer ignore the capacity of each sector to make a contribution and permit greater choices for Bahamian youth.

It has long been known that huge resource endowments, low wages and size are no longer the main criteria for economic success. Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong Bermuda, The Bahamas all put this perception to rest. However, The Bahamas is a high wage country, but by international standards, we have neither a highly trained nor highly educated labor force. Yet our standard of living, already the third highest in the hemisphere, precludes us from competing with Haiti, Mexico, Jamaica or Belize on the basis of wages. There is some comfort, for if low wages alone were the main factor in locating industry, then Haiti would be the industrial center of the West.

Despite massive investments in plant and human resources, the Bahamas’ education policies are failing to produce a competitive workforce. We cannot relent or be careless about education. We will waste our children and as we continue to do so, an increasingly small, educated elite, will prosper while the rest of society becomes commensurately reduced and dependent.

The link between worker productivity and education is hard to measure, even in developed societies. In the context of the Bahamas however, poor cognitive skills, a basic lack of effective vocational and technical training and investments in machines and tools to improve worker output have all contributed to limited improvement in individual productivity. Nowhere is this more evident than in the service industries and the continued dependence of primary industries on stoop labor.

The Bahamas has a service economy. While we define and pursue strategies to diversify the economy, its basic structure will remain service in nature. The dilemma then will be how to increase worker productivity in a predominantly service economy, It can only occur through increased education and training.

The only way to continue to raise living standards and pay for infrastructure, health care and education is through increased worker productivity. Productivity is linked to knowledge about what is to be done, which is linked to education and improving how to do it. We need both to stimulate economic activity. Productivity growth, fueled by investment in improved educational programs and resulting in increased worker performance will only be realized over the medium to long term.

If the Bahamas is to reduce the number of employees with commensurate starts in entrepreneurial firms, then clearly the basis skill level of the labor force will have to improve. This process driven goal must be anchored in the effectiveness of the broad education and training policies and how the work place copes with the dilution effect of many first time employees entering the labor force. If they have no skills, poor work discipline, exhibit hostility to authority and lack team spirit, turnover will be, predictably, high.

The Bahamas will not achieve competitive literacy rates if institutions and parents are not willing to assume responsibility for schooling children. Businesses will not be successful, unless they devote attention to productivity and growth as opposed to protectionism. Corruption and crime will not be eliminated by laws, but through a combination of accountability and the development of dedicated public officials who find merit, satisfaction and glory in building our country.

Developing this new consensus in an extensive undertaking requires the work of many minds and interests working together.
 

Dr. Earl D. Deveaux.