Minister: Scholarship investment must convert to jobs
(CNS): The Ministry of Education is collaborating with Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman (WORC) to build clearer employment pathways for Caymanian graduates returning home. The minister has said the investment that the Cayman Islands Government has made in scholarships should translate to young Caymanians joining the workforce.
Education Council Scholarship recipients preparing to enter the job market are being urged to register with WORC to access vacancies as well as training options that can help them transition into work.
“The improvements we have made to scholarships over the past two years must be matched with Caymanians returning to take up their place within the local economy,” Education Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly said in a release, as she encouraged all local students to take advantage of the services that WORC has to offer in connecting them to employment.
“Our youth are the future leaders of these Cayman Islands. So I welcome partnerships such as these that empower our young people to become productive members of the workforce, actively contributing to nation-building and economic development,” she added.
The government is currently spending more than CI$10 million per year on local and overseas scholarships, according to the 2022-2023 budget. Local undergraduates studying overseas receive up to $30,000 each year for up to four years of studies.
Overseas postgraduate studies are funded up to $35,000 per annum for up to two years for master’s degrees and up to three years for PhDs. In his budget address, Saunders said this would help over 2,500 students each year.
Nicole Thompson, the acting manager of the ministry’s Scholarship Secretariat Unit, said it provides students with extensive career guidance.
“We are continuously searching for new ways to enhance our support to our students,” she said. “WORC has a programme to assist Caymanian job seekers in pursuing jobs and preparing for future careers. We encourage our graduates to register with them and take advantage of an opportunity to further develop their skillset and to connect with potential employers.”
Jobseekers can register via the WORC website and can learn more about the Ministry of Education’s scholarship programmes here.
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Category: Education, Local News
Isn’t it usual that any scholarship usually have a contract term that the person must return and work for the company granting the scholarship for x years?? So wouldn’t it be up to the government to ensure they are providing jobs? If not, how is the government getting value for money on these scholarships?
If we really want scholarship recipients to come home and put their degrees to work, there has to be a connection between the degree course and a definite job placement. You can’t have students taking a degree in psychology and have no position in Cayman that they can fill after graduating. The related bonding arrangements are then redundant, and you have qualified people who will never put their qualification to use here. Funding decisions need to be realistic. By all means, provide support to a good candidate. But don’t expect them to pay it back by returning to the island if there’s no chance of a job.
As long as your government:s performance is based on ever increasing work permit revenues, they will continue to ignore the regulations that were developed over decades to ensure opportunity for your children in Cayman’s most lucrative industries. These were same regulations that Roy and many others directly benefited from. Similar regulations are what keeps out foreign born talent from unemploying of all your MLA’s.
This woman is as useful as an umbrella in a tornado. Totally out of touch with reality. Do what Bush did and go you Fossil.
Dang. I just tried for the fourth time to give you another thumbs up.
Scholarship investments cannot turn into jobs when the work place refuses to hire anyone without 10 years experience for $25K PA and GOV workers refuse to retire.
The island has become so accustomed to hiring foreign workers, with different degrees, and many years experience for half of what a normal salary should be. How can we expect our children to compete with that.
I personally told my child to stay where she is and gather all the experience she can before deciding if she want to come back.
If the Gov cant see what is happening its because they don’t want to. I know of more than 40 Caymanians who had a hard time finding employment here but are now working in productive jobs in the UK, Canada and the US. The narrative that Caymanians don’t want to work is foolishness! what is happening is that the business owners, who are largely foreigners, see their business as an opportunity to help friends and relatives migrate.
Lo-cal, What you don’t understand is that we live in a place where the majority of good, well paying jobs are in the financial services sector. Instead, we have Caymanians who have useless degrees in useless subjects for the Caymanian financial services sector.
More Caymanians need to study subjects like economics, financing & accounting when the go abroad rather than study subjects which have no demand in the Cayman Islands.
I am always amazed by young Caymanians who come back here with degrees in subjects which would be good in the U.K., U.S. or Canada but are useless here.
We also need trade schools to train Caymanians in the Caymanian trade sector where there is a lot of demand for jobs.
We simply do not have a pragmatic education system here.
It’s happening a lot in government too. Colonialism is still going strong!
Caymanians have got to stop their entitled belief that Government is a charity that owes them a living, just because they’re Caymanian.
Right then.
Such pompous attitudes are best reserved for the Lords of the Manor and their idle Executive Wives who tolerate their wanton indiscretions.
Hear Hear
Business WILL hire Caymanians who are suitably qualified and experienced, because they don’t need to pay for work permits. If a Caymanians is applying for a job and is not being hired, they lack the qualifications and/or experience. Businesses aren’t charities, they won’t pay work permit fees if they don’t have to. It may feel cathartic to contrive conspiracy theories, but it’s both nonesensical and counterproductive.
See these two blog posts from 2005, almost two decades ago. Plus ça change….
https://h2g2.com/entry/A4503665
https://h2g2.com/entry/A4503683
Some quotes:
“[Caymanians] have been abruptly thrust into the twenty-first century by a world seeming falling over itself to shove money into the collective pocket (which, naturally, ends up being a rather more selective collective than one might think), but demanding modernisation in return. Politically, they are shielded from many of the harsh realities of international relations partly by being on of the few remnants of the British Empire, but mainly by the fact that everyone keeps their money here. They are far and away the richest nation in the Caribbean region, but they’ve only really had one generation in which to get used to this. They may have a first world standard of living, but the society and the mindset that goes with it are still, well, developing…
Given that the Cayman Islands now has a population of just over 40, 000 (I’m really talking about Grand Cayman here – I don’t know much about society on the ‘sister islands’ (Little Cayman and Cayman Brac), but by all accounts it consists of a handful of people, most of whom are their own cousins, and some interesting blue iguanas, so I’m going to ignore them here) it’s an important point to note that only about half of those are actually Caymanian. This seems to make Caymanians extremely paranoid about us foreigners coming and ‘taking over’ their country…
This results in several things. Firstly, a society so organised around a bias towards Caymanians over foreigners that the sheer gall of it takes my breath away, and secondly a deep and abiding resentment of the bloody foreigners who have the temerity to come over and bring wealth and prosperity to the island whilst getting treated like second-class citizens…
[For Caymanians] schooling is free, higher education can be undertaken at any university in the world on a hefty government scholarship and a good job is more-or-less guaranteed at the end of it. Because the economy of the Island far outstrips the population, there are far more jobs than there are Caymanians, which is, of course, why all this foreign labour is essential. As such, there are stringent laws in place to the effect that any job must be advertised locally before it goes overseas, companies are obliged to have quotas of local staff, no foreigner can operate a business on Island without a Caymanian partner (these ‘silent’ partners have a reputation for waiting until the business becomes successful and then forcing out the foreigner and selling up) and so on. As a result, few Caymanians seem to bother about getting much of an education, as it doesn’t really affect their job prospects one way or the other…
So, as fewer Caymanians than one would expect take up the opportunity of an education, generally they get themselves a junior (but not too junior) position in some kind of business and ‘work’ their way up. As it’s virtually impossible for a Caymanian to get sacked – particularly if they’re working with ex-pats (and if they manage to do something so spectacularly wrong that they are, they’ll just get another job), it really doesn’t matter to your average Caymanian whether they do their job well (or at all) or not – they’re just out for as easy a ride as possible, which is what their society has taught them from day one that they can expect from the world. This is why so much out here in terms of basic services and utilities works so badly. The Caymanians tend to get promoted by osmosis and as a result a majority of the native population ends up sitting comfortably in and around the middle-to-upper management strata (and, if the health service is anything to go by, would have difficulty managing it’s way out of a wet paper bag with a clearly marked fire exit). This is, of course, where Johnny Foreigner comes in…
[Expats] come, earn a bit of cash, don’t pay taxes, soak up a few rays, shake our heads at the ludicrous way the place is run (but are quite unable to change anything because no Caymanian likes to have a foreigner tell them what to do) and cheerfully bugger off home at the end of our stay. Equally, as all the Caymanians are busy sitting in offices, being important and making up jobs for each other and all the ex-pats are well trained professionals (or they wouldn’t have been allowed here in the first place) who’s going to mop the floors, cart trolleys and generally to all the donkey work? Happily, there’s a multitude of Jamaicans and Hondurans desperately keen to earn Caymanian wages (even donkeywork on Cayman pays enough to support a family back home) and happy to do all the work that Caymanians won’t do for the simple reason that they don’t have to and that the white ex-pats are overqualified for. That’s how the society functions here; class delineation corresponds almost perfectly to nationality. It’s a situation that affords the Caymanian people a standard of living comparable to any of the world wealthiest countries whilst having very little part in maintaining said standard of living and so being totally dependent on foreign nationals to fill in the gaps left by an entire society cramming itself into the upper-middle class. OK, not all Caymanians fit into this picture of things. Some do other things; learn professions and so on. There are always the stupid and the lazy (lazier, I mean), the increasing crack-smoking faux gangsta section of the youth of the country, who won’t get jobs – aberrant factions of society, who don’t fit the pattern (one of my patients described himself as being from ‘the ghetto’ the other day – he meant a square kilometre up the road where the houses need a lick of paint and most families don’t run a second car). Generally speaking, though, society functions as I describe above and very nice it is too for most of us – particularly the natives. What I can’t get my head round, then, is the total lack of insight into the way things work and the constant underlying resentment of foreigners from the population as a whole.
Expats, it is muttered (and written in very concerned and usually badly spelled letters to the newspapers), come over to the island, take jobs away from honest hard-working Caymanians (I’m told there is such a thing…) and end up taking Caymanian dollars off the island – weakening the economy. Weakening the economy? We are the economy. Where the bloody hell do they think all their money comes from anyway? Fish? Aside from which if there was a Caymanian capable of doing my job, there’s not a chance in hell I’d be here.”
The bright ones will get offered starting jobs in the US or Canada with much better pay. Why not an option to pay back the scholarship over a few years while getting their careers started. If they need to be somewhere else to get ahead, that’s just reality. Lots of kids worldwide have to leave home to get started. Why penalize yours.
And a higher quality of life, with great national parks, arts and entertainment, logical roads and highways, and realiatic real estate pricing.
Why don’t they ensure the students are pursuing a career that is short-staffed by Caymanian’s? They all go off and study the same things, or general useless degrees, and come back to fight for the same jobs. Let’s demand some return on the investment and have them study in areas that need Caymanian representation.
yeah we should have our children study ditch digging or any other jobs foreigners don’t want.
It’s the foreigners who dig ditches. Caymanians supervise.
ah so we can’t have those ones either?
You mean won’t have those and everyone knows.
6:23, Always amazed how many Canadians I have met here tending bar.
Canadians don’t seem to mind bar jobs.
Why don’t Caymanians like to do bar jobs?
Caymanians suck at late night work whilst Canadians suck at any worki gratuit
Bang on Scott. You hit the nail on the head.
A minister of education who won’t fire ‘teachers’ who perform DIY exorcisms. Wur aw doomed!!!
With the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom traditionally being the drivers of the Global Economy, meaning that most of, or the majority of the people in those countries are employ
Employers in those countries employ people with well paying jobs or employers pay there employees good salaries who vacation in different places around the world that spend there money renting hotels that provide local jobs in vacation destinations around the world in the tourim industry like ours
Americans, Canadians and the British people who visit these different tourism destinations around the world, also purchase meals at local restaurants while on vacation, usually invest in local investments and purchase a second home or condo when they do not have to worry about crime being out of control, when they feel safe, welcomed and are greeted by friendly and helpful people
As a small nation with some of the best educational institutions and tourism destination in the region, those of us who are creative and have bright ideas like some of the inventions below that could help benefit millions of people, should be aware of the proceedurers and processes for funding new inventions
The United States just announced 800,000 new manufacturing jobs, which is good news that is very much welcomed that will hopefully add to the recent number of visiting tourist revealed by our Tourism Minister who visited our island last year
Obviously, Caymanian graduates should get themselves up to Canada or the US and get some of those jobs, assuming they don’t have a family business to run.
Canada drivers the global economy, WTF???
With such a well educated population I take it that every senior position, public and private sector will be filled by Caymanians in the next 10 years?
Of course the Bonding condition needs to remain with a degree of discretion, the ability to fulfill the bond could be affected by the nature of the specific industry and the economic climate. I was awarded a Gov’t scholarship with the typical condition of Bond to work in the country for every year that I was sponsored. I completed my studies in 2013 and there was very little work in my industry at that time. It made little sense to come home and work a job outside of my field so I spent the next 3 years getting international experience and having a relationship with a local firm, I came straight back into a job in my area of study. My experience isn’t a blueprint but the system can work for us to raise our country and people up by allowing some flexibility even in the scope of a long term plan
The worst that has ever happened to Cayman’s educational system is Education Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly
I dunno, you forgetting about Roy and Truman.
Brac and Lil Cayman should have one representative and it shouldn’t be her. She needs to go.
She is power hungry and loves spending other people’s money.
Fare thee well in retirement Julianna. May it soon come.
Those flexing their control over independent Boards, policy making, and disclosure are the ones also singling that they are the key person “consultant” to negotiate with in the back room. In Cayman, our MPs don’t even pretend to distance via a nominee company, they openly do it in their own names. PAC, AG, ACC recommendations ignored and never implemented. SIPL conflict disclosures, where they exist, are incomplete, static, and reside behind a thick velvet curtain.
She also has difficulty with the facts. Just before each campaign cycle starts up she hints that she will not run then she is the first one at the starting line. She has the uncanny ability to fit herself into each group or party and does absolutely nothing to benefit the people of the Cayman Islands unless it is installing a through road or spreading marl and asphalt in the driveways on Cayman Brac. Apparent that is all that is required of her.
With leaders like her we are doomed! She’s a dinosaur and should have been put out to pasture long ago! She’s only been in power in one way / government or another for decades – and accomplished zilch!
It has been the policy of the Ministry of Education to require scholarship recipients to sign an undertaking to return to work in the Cayman Islands, I believe it’s for, at least, 5 years after graduating (or, alternatively, after finishing post-tertiary qualifications).
Not a bad policy, however, it cannot be a firm “absolute” (rather than “qualified”) policy, which does not (at least in certain cases) stultify and, thereby, make a fool of the legal policy: such that, one policy area
I will illustrate an example of what I mean: suppose a scholarship recipient is talented in some type of art (eg, performing arts(eg, acting in a movie or on broadway), drawing/sketching/painting or producing beats for music), then what if they are required to be off-Island to excel in their chosen field of work?
So, let’s take a real example, Jason “JG” Gilbert, who I attended Community College (now UCCI) with after high school, that is the only Caymanian to win a Grammy (specifically for co-producing a beat for Eminem’s song “WTP”).
Jason has explained to me that, despite wanting to be permanently in Grand Cayman, if he were not, he would loose out on real business opportunities unless he is based in California, New York or Florida (eg, Dade County), because these are geographically sensitive transport hubs to allowing him to enjoy carrying out his craft by which he earns a living. What would happen if Jason or, alternatively, another talented Caymanian requires a different geographic positioning other than within the Cayman Islands’ jurisdictional boundaries?
Food for thought.
I prematurely posted this without finishing one point, which should read, in full, as follows:
“Not a bad policy, however, it cannot be a firm “absolute” (rather than “qualified”) policy, which does not (at least in certain cases) stultify — to stultify a legal policy is to make a fool of it — and, thereby, make a fool of the legal policy area, such that, if without good reason a legal policy were to contradict a considered position elsewhere, the unreasoned contradiction would stultify the legal policy overall.”
There were no local scholarship grants available for both of our honour-role straight-A college-bound Caymanian kids, without some clause that required them to decide at 16 to forever be an accountant, a lawyer, or immediately serve out time in a junior career stagnating position in the Cayman Islands. It’s not free grant money when there are these self-determination strings attached, some of them career stagnating.
So you want your children to be given money to study with no strings attached? Just take the money and go about your life? Quid pro quo isn’t unreasonable in the least
Why shouldn’t the entity providing a scholarship require a small return on their investment?
You know why
So let’s lift the attainment requirements 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Fakery stuff!??!
1. Make a Means Tests for each scholarship applicant mandatory.
2. Put the Gov cash into primary ed, ensuring each Capable kid is reading and numerate before jumping off prematurely!! to high school at age 11.
3. Offer a catch up program. Online or over holidays.
4. Stop allowing quick n fast Slave labor permits in all sectors. Educated locals with real bills in CI$ cannot compete with the high conversion rates of cash$ to India, Jam, Philippines etc
5. Introduce a Minimum Monthly Living Wage. Not a fake hourly rate so that owners can manipulate hours and shifts etc.
We still have to invest time and training into those that come back with degrees from overseas
There is no country in the world where a young person of the age of say 24 is the finished article no matter how well educated they are
The scholarships are a fantastic opportunity for our younger generation and on a whole very much appreciated
4 year honours degree graduates are typically 20 or 21 these days, and barely out of adolescence. Our so-called Rep offices in Washington DC, London and wherever else, should have the added function of helping to place our young graduates into interviews for big name internships where they can gain practical hands-on experience, training, and management tools which can return to Cayman as mid-tier management roles, rather than indentured entry level career stagnation.
Start with a shared database with Education Ministry being able to know what are the demands for Work Permits within government and the private sector. The excuses and inaction of allowing non-Caymanians to come into the Civil Services and SAGcs is unfathomable.
They are studying for the wrong careers! The expats in the civil service are largely there because no Caymanian’s have the required education and experience for those positions. Being Caymanian is not an education or experience, when the role requires a Masters or Phd in a specific discipline. The ineptitude of the larger civil service can be linked directly to the placement of Caymanians in positions they are not qualified for.
With all due respect, it is neither education nor experience that is the problem here
Yes it kinda is. Companies here are generally not in a position to hire entry level staff. Maybe the biggest ones do but the vast majority of their hiring still needs to be for people with more senior experience. Might only be 5 years and up but that’s still more than anyone out of college.
I was a kid out of college once as well and didn’t get interviewed for most of the jobs I applied for let alone hired. It’s not an easy task to find entry level jobs for anyone, anywhere. These kids have a much better chance getting that job in abroad where there are tons of employers seeking such employees. Then after a few years they come back here and see what they can get their hands on. To try and crack into a senior industry when you’re just out of school is really very hard.
Remove the required education and experience and give Caymanians a chance in work that requires such education and experience.
What could possibly go wrong?
#CaymanKind
Problem with young Caymanians is that they don’t want to pay their dues. They all want to move immediately into management jobs right out of school.
They don’t live in the real job world.
What you’re saying is true in many cases, yes. However, there are also many cases where there are expatriates hired for medium level and even entry level positions simply because that’s what the Director or CEO wants. Sometimes it’s to bring in a friend and sometimes it’s because the Director or CEO prefers contracted foreign workers so he/she can dangle the contract over them. Sometimes the Director or CEO can even arrange an overseas interview jaunt, I mean interview, all paid for by the public purse. Such is a process that anyone paying attention is well aware of.
G, You really think employers want to pay the high costs for work permits and costs to move people from abroad here?
If there were suitably qualified Caymanians I guarantee you they would hire Caymanians.
I know, I have been in this situation with my business.
Amennnn
Nationalism and blaming expats (or Jamaicans, Filipinos and soon, Chinese) is undefeated.
Yea but they are the ones getting preferential treatment over Caymanians and status holders from other countries
We will get to blaming the Indians before the Chinese. Already the fourth largest group of expats.
We have known for years that there are needs for trade jobs and work permits here in the trades sectors but we still have no trade School here.
One does not have to be a genius to know this.
Perhaps someone can tell JuJu.
Why do you need to have a shared database? Just ask WORC to send the Ministry a list each month showing the total number of permits held and applications by job type. That way you don’t have to wait 2 years and millions of dollars if consulting fees to integrate the databases! And you won’t BT be breaching the data protection laws by using the personal information in individual applications for a completely different purpose.
Perhaps if they came back and could read and write they would have a chance. Make the requirements for a scholarship harder and drive the youth to work for it rather than just expect it. Such a welfare state. The best and brightest is what these scholarships should be targeting.
must be mad! give kids opportunity to spread wings! not be demanded to work for underpaid low wage govt jobs as they did to me in the 90’s…
So how does rubber stamping every financial service permit for last decade help convert scholarships to jobs. WORC does nothing in relation to supervision of immigration laws and allows the same obscure position requirements that companies tried decades ago. They even use aptitude tests so you may be a qualified Caymanian but you still need to compete with permit holders and the rest of the world. You can blame Sir Sellout-alot, Sleepy Roy, and now Saunders. The latter actually begged industry to give Caymanians equal opportunity..not demand priority consistent with immigration laws….and he wants employers to have security of retention of permit holders…seemingly without regard to Caymanians looking for positions or promotions. What a bunch of weak stupid men ave been running this country for the last decade.
Not sure this is a totally solvable problem. If a student is awarded a scholarship and receives a degree as say, a teacher, doctor, lawyer or accountant they probably have a reasonable shot at landing a job in Cayman. But, if the students passion is electrical engineering, scientific research, and receive a degree in that profession those jobs simply don’t exist in Cayman. To shatter their dreams and make them return is cruel and unusual punishment.
Business WILL hire Caymanians who are suitably qualified and experienced, because they don’t need to pay for work permits. If a Caymanians is applying for a job and is not being hired, they lack the qualifications and/or experience. Businesses aren’t charities, they won’t pay work permit fees if they don’t have to. It may feel cathartic to contrive conspiracy theories, but it’s both nonesensical and counterproductive.
It is about time she stands up or may I say sit down and open her mouth on this crucial matter.
Tertiary graduates not being able to find work both in the public and private sectors is nothing new. However, it is about time the Minister start doing something about it.
The brain drain is increasing and it should not be the case.
CIG provides the scholarships, the graduates comes home and in search of jobs are often told:
1. You have no or little experience for this position.
2. You are over or under qualified for the position. Or
3. There is no job for you at the moment.
Then the graduate applies for jobs overseas and get them. Even though the outcome in the end is favourable for the graduate, why on earth should these graduates have to relocate especially when many prefer to be employed in their own country?
You have answered your own question. For the jobs in Cayman:
1. They have no or little experience for the position.
2. They are over or under qualified for the position.
3. There is no job for them at the moment.
Whereas the number of jobs overseas are expoentially greater, and often far more junior, and therefore there will be lower requirements.
It’s really not difficult, why can’t you understand? Perhaps people’s lack of basic comprehension skills is one of the issues putting employers off hiring them?…
Also child of Cayman status millionaires granted scholarship for UK university…
Friends in high places is all you need.
Why is the threshold for scholarship so high. Currently a Caymanian student from a family making less than CI$400,000 can apply for scholarship. This is US$500,000. This was set up by the Alder administration. No wonder you have children of rich doctors and rich lawyers applying for scholarship.
PACT needs to revisit and reduce eligibility to say CI$200,000
Yes and they deny generational Caymanian students whose forefathers built this place.
Perhaps those students would do better to stand on their own merits rather than those of their ancestors. The islands’ obsession with family background above individual achievement is not a positive thing.
Expats built Cayman. The truth may hurt, but it’s still the truth.
See Freyer, Tony, and Andrew P. Morriss. “Creating Cayman as an offshore financial center: structure & strategy since 1960.” Ariz. St. LJ 45 (2013): 1297. https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/23/
There’s only a few openings for graduates with a “masters” in religious studies.
As far as I know, no student has ever been turned down for a scholarship because there wasn’t any money available to give them.
Quite rightly, educational scholarships should only be given to students who achieved the grades to earn them and have been admitted to a recognized institution of higher education.
Money should never be given to anyone, whether a last week or last 10 generations Caymanian, to go off for 4 years of partying and return with no qualifications or a degree not worth the value of the piece of paper it is written on.
When funds are limited, and I would expect that to happen very quickly with our growth in population, then preference should be based on need, and priority given to those whose parents cannot afford to make a contribution.
Except they removed the grade requirement….
A scholarship should always be merit based, financial assistance on the other hand should definitely be need based.
great soundbite regarding a problem that does not exist…
yawn…..if you are good enough and show the right attitude, you will be fine. nothing more to be said or done.
Children of CI Government employees need only apply.
what a lie
This is OUR money, isn’t it? Show us where the recipient list is published. And there you go.
You will never see the recipient list.