Not enough young men seeking higher education
Bishop John Cline has expressed concern about the low number of males seeking higher education in the territory, saying the community needs to encourage boys to upgrade their skills through tertiary education.
“I was recently the keynote speaker at the H.Lavity Stoutt College graduation and I noticed that in the graduation class there were 91 girls and 52 boys – almost twice as many young ladies as men. I think we need to do more to close the gap of getting our boys into higher education,” Bishop Cline said on the NDP radio show.
While agreeing with Bishop Cline, At-Large Representative Ronnie Skelton stressed that males should note that they don’t have to enrol in arts programmes, as males are also needed in the skills trades and technical fields such as engineering and technology.
“When we say higher education we don’t necessarily mean the college. We want our young men to get into the trades, technology and such things,” Skelton added while his co-hosts agreed.
In recent times, the community has been expressing concern about the state of young men who are increasingly ditching positive attitudes and values and are instead displaying behaviours that eventually land them in trouble with the law.
There’s been a call for more male mentorship programmes as well as proper parenting across the territory. In the meantime, males continue to be a marginalised group in the Caribbean, particularly in the education systems across the region.
Females generally outperform males at all education levels – a phenomenon that leads to social and economic alienation later in life, contributing to high rates of school dropout, crime, and violence among young men.
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You know the song
In the past skills were handed down from father to son and developed by way of a seven-year indentured apprenticeship under the eye of a master craftsman.
My training began before the age of five at my grandfather’s workbench. Many of the tools I am using today I inherited from my father and grandfather, along with their work affects.
Alas, real apprenticeships and master craftsmen are a thing of the past, and society suffers.
Correction: “work affects” should read “work ethics”.
Nephew in one article, Uncle in another – BVI News is rapidly becoming the Cline (family) News Network.
Assumptions flawed as 91:52 graduant ratio could be due to other factors and does not necessarily mean that less men chose higher education. It could mean more women passed by the deadline than men. It could mean more women attend full time while more men attend part time so they can also work therefore all won’t graduate at the same time. It could mean more men have the means to go abroad straight from high school on military or sports scholarships for example so skip hlscc altogether. If men take a gap year to work, again, nothing is wrong with that. That can actually be a good thing to help them figure out what it is they actually want to do at hlscc. Never assume because…you know the rest.
It could be but it’s not. Let’s stop making excuses. It’s a confirmed trend on this side of the world. If you actually read the article he also spoke about learning trades, not just degrees.
AI Overview
More women than men have college degrees. That’s good news …
More women graduate from college than men. Specifically, women’s college graduation rates are consistently higher than men’s, with women often graduating at a rate of roughly 67% compared to men’s 60%, according to BestColleges.com. This trend has been observed for some time, with women surpassing men in college completion rates for several decades, according to the RSF Journal.
What does your Ai statistics say about ratio of young men who are higher earners, own their own businesses, take home greater pay. They have been dominating. We dont need Ai to tell us the ratio of men to women in the House of Assembly right now for example. How many young men sit in top CEO/Board/Managerial positions as we speak. One cannot simply look at the number of male to female graduates at HLSCC, or anywhere and assume the reason for the imbalance is because men have chosen not to do higher education. It is a flawed conclusion that requires deeper investigation and evidence-based assessment and there are far too many other possible reasons that should not be ignored. This is the difference between political knowledge (flawed) and evidence-based knowledge (reliable).
When ayo prefer outsiders
Why does Society value Degrees more than Experience? If I’m a 15 year carpenter with an Associates Degree doing all the designs understanding the work best and delivering quality work, how is a new graduate out of college with a Bachelors in Carpentry and no experience higher value than me?
Crazy thing is some of these foreigners degrees not even real they just coming here and finessing our system and getting preference over locals with fake credentials and they still got to learn the job on the job from people “less qualified” than them.
Unfortunately most in theology not in useful business, science , Technology,law or engineering . Many locals are trained to appear pious and make speeches patronizing their ill educated voters but no skills to actually fulfill their empty election rhetoric.
Because, “Bishop”, the point of spending so many years in tertiary education, versus the quick buck of a “puff, a smoke, or a bale”, is a no brainer!
The state of schools in the Territory suggests that this is not a country that values education. Many of those that go to tertiary education don’t return because of limited opportunities for them here, or in some cases because salaries here are low. Moreover, people growing up here see elected politicians squander the public purse for personal benefit, some asking and getting absurd money for construction services (da is de price) and others do the bidding of the cartel for relatively small investments of time in exchange for a lot of cash. None of that requires going to college.
Your comment is factual and genuine.
Hopefully, within the next election cycle, from the first (1st) to the (9) district, every last one of them will be sent on a very long vacation until the financial looting investigations of the country have concluded and justice had begun.
The country does not need another GREEDY BILL Political party, where MILLIONS OF the people’s money contiouously disappear without a trace, and absolutely nothing that can be pointed to as progress for the upliftment of the people.
Some ask for a little help and receive while the vast. majority are sent begging to individuals behind a desk that do not give a flying f+vl about people and their sufferings,while the eleced officials are stoned cold infifferent.
On that day,many will travel back home, to cast that critical vote for the political hygiene brush and broom to be enacted.
The Virgin Islands is in a state of political desperatism. It is falling fast. The men that was elected have one much to enrich themselves at the expense of all other except the white envelopes.
Corruption will always exist, but. it must not be allowed to visibly fester to the degree it is today. crew.
Passive aggressive behaviours here are killing the system here. Whether you have a Phd or no degree. If you have skill you should be able to eat.