By Tupuola Terry Tavita

It is comforting to see so many young people come out of the classrooms this graduation season, with the hope, of joining the workforce.

This column has always been of the fervent opinion that the only way to achieve social equality and balance in society, is when everyone has equal access to quality education opportunity.

When the son of a nonu farmer in Savaii is afforded an education standard at school facilities, on par, with the daughter of a doctor in Apia.

The end point, of course, is that academic pursuit should be geared towards the needs of the country. Or else, you have a disproportionate wealth of graduates in one sector while another sector is devoid of qualified personnel. An unequal distribution of talent.

Therefore, it is essential that education direction dovetails with the evolving economic and development needs of the country. Moreover, Samoa’s development needs are not only determined by domestic demand, but – by and large – influenced by global economic and business trends.

We live in a globalized world and Samoa has to position itself to take advantage of geo-economic opportunities that we can tap into.

Yazaki for instance.

But the biggest global growth sector today is communications and the spread of multinational IT companies.

We see it with the rapid growth of what really are, in the bigger scheme of things, small to medium range multinational communications companies like Digicel and BlueSky.

Perhaps our education system – to some degree – can be tweaked to mill out more IT, management and marketing and sales graduates to cater for – what is expected – to be a rise in job opportunities in this particular sector.

Perhaps also it would be useful for the National University of Samoa to immediately prioritize the establishment of an IT school that incorporates other employable areas such as graphic and web designing and computer animation. Japan is already building a four-storey multi-million dollar communications center at the University of the South Pacific campus in Suva.

NUS has some catching up to do.

And it’s not just IT and communications.

We also need good corporate management people who go on to become good CEOs, accountants and bankers, surveyors and architects who go on to become property developers, civil and technical engineers as well as blue-collar skilled personnel such as welders, fitters, plumbers and electricians – trades people crucial to a developing economy.

Perhaps it’s time to review, and continue to review, our economy – and, vis a vis, education system – to look into new development models and growth industries in the face of a transient global workplace.

CRITICAL MASS

Two things that have always hampered development in this country is the smallness of its population and, especially, the lack of critical mass in terms of talent.

Thus, this column has always been open to the idea of skilled immigration.

Despite some reservations in some sectors regarding Chinese business immigrants, the reality is, our economy needs the competition their business provides.

But more importantly, their entrepreneurial talents rub off on local traders, laterally, lifting the whole merchant sector.

Furthermore, immigrant talent fills the voids in our skills market.

There’s an Arabic gentleman running an electronics repair shop at the Fugalei market who can fix anything from cell phones to laptops, plasma tvs, x-box and toasters.

Chinese-owned Coin Save sells an array of very popular portable stereo gadgets you can simply hook up to your cell phone or flash drive. The quality of the products may be a bit dodgy but, sooner or later, another outfit will offer better gadgets at cheaper prices. That’s how industry grows.

On an academic level, perhaps government can focus on setting up the necessary training infrastructure to develop the necessary technical talents.

It should provide an accommodating environment – in terms of salaries and social security (education and health care) – to attract talented Samoans and other foreigners to live and work here.

Singapore, for instance is a country of 5 million people on an island a fraction the size of Upolu with absolutely no natural resources.

Yet, it is listed – for some years now – in the top ten of the richest countries country in the world with a standard of living higher than New Zealand.

What’s Singapore’s secret?

It has a very talented, very motivated and very innovative workforce that attracts big companies like Samsung, Nokia and Sony to set up shop there.

That’s a model Samoa can learn a thing or two from.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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