Target males!

Minister of Education, Technology, Science and Innovation, Ronald Jones, has urged institutions such as the University of the West Indies, the Barbados Community College and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology, to create more programmes to pique the interest of the males of the island.

Jones’ comment came during the graduation ceremony of the 2017 class of Barbados Community College (BCC) graduates, which took place at the Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Complex on Saturday evening. He applauded the 1 019 graduates, but noted that he was a little worried about the 70 per cent female and 30 per cent male ratio. He was also particularly pleased with the hard work of Malique Marsh, who achieved a perfect grade point average of 4.0.

“It is a serious danger sociologically when, in any society, such a large group of well educated women emerge from that society and standing somewhere behind them is a small group of well educated men. Right now women in the country dominate. They are assertive, purposeful and focused,” he said.

“There is nothing wrong with women educating themselves, but there is something wrong with men not educating themselves. There is space at the Community College for more men to get up and when they drop their ladies off at whatever time of the day on their bicycles, they too would park their bicycles and go to class.”

Jones went on to note that if BCC was to become the steering wheel of the economy, it must now also become the gearbox and help move the economy to a higher gear of innovation for a necessary economic revolution.

“The college is now registered, but there is another step to be taken. I do not know if that can be achieved in the following year, but it is something to work towards. The college must become fully accredited, an institutional accreditation,” he said.

He believed that this is an extremely important step for the college to take, in order to continue soaring with the potential it has shown over the years. In addition to this accreditation, Jones called on those who graduated to contribute to the institution to ensure that it can continue giving the future generations the education they deserve.

“We as a nation most times step back from making contributions to our primary, nursery, secondary schools, and in this instance, tertiary institutions like the Barbados Community College, but this must change!” he said.