MORE THAN JUST MEDICINE
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, more popularly known as STEM, is the catalyst that will drive the economies of the Caribbean forward and generate the type of foreign exchange and create job opportunities for its citizens.
This was one of the points that was brought forth by Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Interim Executive Director of SPISE, Cardinal Warde, in an interview with The Barbados Advocate recently.
He stated that there is a vast set of careers in this sector that students can look to get into, but unfortunately, these career paths are not explored as frequently as they should by some young and bright Caribbean minds because they do not know of these careers and as a result, the majority of persons who do study Science subjects in secondary school and college, then go on to pursue medicine at university.
However, STEM is not just about medicine and if persons are serious about building the economies of the region, then they must look into some of the other careers in these areas because these are the persons that would pave the way for companies to start and thrive in the future.
“One of the reasons to focus on science and engineering is that these are disciplines – well, STEM in general, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – these disciplines are areas where our students have great capacity, but that capacity is never developed. A lot of the students of course who can do STEM disciplines go into medicine because that is where the jobs are, but to build the economies of the Caribbean, you have to start embracing science and technology and building companies and organisations in science and technology; and engineering is of course a discipline that is perhaps the most important because engineers tend to start more companies and create more products than even scientists. This is not to say that scientists do not create companies, the whole biotech industry is (created) by scientists.”
The MIT professor stated that while some of these career paths are being pursued by Caribbean citizens, it tends to be restricted to certain disciplines. He highlighted an example of engineering where persons in the region do pursue studies in this area at the university level, but it is centred on civil engineering while there are a host of other disciplines in engineering that can and need to be followed.
“But in the Caribbean, especially here in Barbados, an engineer is probably a civil engineer and there are about 15 different disciplines of engineering that our students do not get into that they need to and create products that can be sold on the global market to bring in foreign exchange to help us get out of debt. I think that to me is the solution for the future of the Caribbean in terms of economic development. Science and technology must be harnessed for economic development.”