Promoting inclusive education and learning and productive employment

The pandemic and containment measures restricted GDP growth in BMCs in 2020. Regional GDP shrank by 7.2% compared with 0.6% in 2019. With a per capita adjustment, the headline figure is lower at -12.5%, largely attributed to the closure of borders, lockdown measures, travel restrictions, which affected most industries especially tourism and agriculture, the main drivers of revenue for most BMCs. Furthermore, the decline in global oil prices adversely affected commodity-based economies, such as Trinidad and Tobago. Essentially, almost all BMCs recorded significant contractions in their economies. This unprecedented event and associated fallout could make the SDG target of at least 7% of real GDP growth per year even more challenging for BMCs, which are already grappling with existing economic, social, and environmental vulnerabilities.

Promoting inclusive education and learning and productive employment

With the continued focus on achieving SDG 4 – ensure inclusive and equitable access to quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all – BMCs continue to prioritise inclusive access and enhance the quality and relevance of education to improve the achievement of learning outcomes across the sub-sectors8. A key focus is the quality of the teachinglearning experience, such as promoting differentiated instruction to address the learning needs of students, particularly vulnerable students, those with significant learning deficits and, in general, special education needs learners. This is even more important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the adverse impact it had on providing inclusive access to quality education.

Improvements in overall academic performance remain nominal with the proportion of both female students (36.4%) and male students (29.8%) of the secondary school graduates achieving five or more subject passes in the CXC General Proficiency, or the equivalent national assessment. Females continue to achieve better results than do males, a phenomenon, which emerges within primary education and persists throughout basic education. Greater emphasis on assessment for learning is now widely accepted as a strategic instructional approach, which should permeate basic education, complemented by improved teacher effectiveness. Though there was a slight improvement in 2020 (52%), over 2019 (49%), stronger performance in mathematics remains the critical outcome to improve overall performance of successive cohorts of learners. The average completion rates for TVET continue to show more males than females accessing those programmes, with 52.3% and 47.9%, respectively, completing at least one Level 1 course in TVET at the end of secondary education. The results reported in 2020 represented a decline from the baseline figures. There is therefore a considerable way to go to achieve the regional goal of each graduate of secondary education completing at least one TVET subject. While BMCs started making significant investments in expanding access to demand-driven skills development, mainstreaming TVET requires sustained investment in facilities, certifying teachers and instructors and maximising technology to replicate industry practices. Another urgent imperative is to address gender stereotypes, which constrain uptake in non-traditional programmes, especially for females.

Overall, the regional focus continues to prioritise inclusive measures to improve educational outcomes for all learners. Policy attention must continue to be placed on measures addressing equitable access to high quality education, expanding relevant skills development, and leveraging ICTs to support inclusive teaching and learning. This is even more relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the significant impact it had on learning continuity and loss of learning, as schools were closed as part of the mitigation measures. Across BMCs, the deployment and mass use of ICTs for teaching and learning were constrained by institutional deficits in the ICT infrastructure and human resource capacity and an undeveloped enabling environment to support online engagement and learning, particularly in socio-economic disadvantaged homes and communities. Emphasis must be placed on access to ICT devices, internet access with adequate bandwidth, and learning platforms for the development of teachers to become adept at maximising the technology to support inclusive and differentiated learning. As schools return to normal there must be a vigorous and expansive effort of remediation, increased time-on-task in the classroom and effective instructional planning to maximise student engagement for improved learning outcomes.

Despite higher female academic performance at the secondary level, gender disparities in school-to-work transition still exist. The overall unemployment rate at the regional level was 12.7% compared with 11.2% in 20199. Unemployment generally affects the youth labour force. It is, therefore, not surprising