The brain power of our lawmakers is questionable
Lite Poll writes: The principal job of lawmakers in the Cayman Islands is to make laws, and the point of holding elections every four years is to elect lawmakers. However glaringly obvious that sounds, it seems to be a fact that is lost in every general election and points to an ability that is depressingly missing from the CVs of many candidates over the years, including incumbents.
As we head towards the 2025 elections and some would-be politicians may already be considering running for office, it’s worth discussing the kind of people who will try to persuade voters that they are qualified for the job. Most of them will not be.
Being a long-time member of a service club or a PTA, teaching Sunday school, going to church, running a small business or being generally held to be a very nice person and a hard worker — these are personal qualities that voters might think are important for an MP, but they don’t trump the essential criterion, which is the ability to be part of a body of lawmakers who propose and vote on bills and amendments to existing laws.
Candidates who offer a wishlist of nice things for their constituents without explaining what laws need to be enacted or changed to achieve them — and how to pay for everything — are just painting rainbows. And if they make it sound easy, they haven’t thought it through. Ask them to explain the whole legislative process. If they can’t, don’t vote for them.
To make laws, lawmakers must possess the intellectual ability to read current and proposed laws and understand them. This means reading a wide variety of legislation — financial services laws, environmental laws, planning laws, pension laws, labour laws, etc — from start to finish (not just the title), plus the regulations and the supporting documents.
MPs don’t have to be lawyers. That’s not their job. But they do have to have basic intelligence, so if they don’t understand the laws they are voting on, they can question the people who do and even (gasp!) research the issue themselves.
In my personal opinion based on observation only, of the current 19 elected members of parliament, seven have the intellectual ability to read and understand laws. I have not counted one lawyer because the ability to remember things is not the same as understanding them.
As well as possessing the ability to read laws, lawmakers should demonstrate that they are sufficiently diligent to actually do this. I’m not suggesting that they must read all the hundreds of Cayman Islands laws, but they should have read all the basic laws as well as the bills they must vote on, plus all the supporting documents, including technical explanations.
This can be time-consuming and dull, but MPs are paid, at the very minimum, $130,512 before all their lovely perks and expenses, and Cabinet members are paid, at the very minimum, $188,076 before all their outrageously generous perks and expenses. That’s enough to expect them to have to do some dull reading.
In my opinion, based entirely on guesswork, of the current 19 elected members of parliament, five have both the intelligence and the diligence to read and understand laws. I think this may be a generous guess. I would be surprised if seven of our current MPs have read the Constitution from start to finish.
As well as possessing intellectual ability and diligence, MPs should also have the integrity to vote on new laws according to what’s best for the country and not what’s best for themselves. That means being prepared to go against the wishes of potential political backers and, in some cases, to vote against the wishes of their constituents if it’s the right thing to do. It means voting on laws even if it goes against their own financial interest. Our MPs should have a conscience.
This is where it gets even more depressing. There are only two MPs that I would trust to fully comprehend what they are doing and do the right thing, no matter the cost. Neither of them represents my district. It seems to me that the main aim of most of our current lawmakers is to get re-elected, the country be damned.
The sad fact is that being an elected representative is the most lucrative job that many past and present MPs ever had, and provides an income that most candidates can only dream of. For other MPs, past and present, it provides the gears and levers to ensure that their income outside and in addition to their jobs as politicians keeps flowing.
It could be argued that members of a political party can pool their abilities for the betterment of all their constituents. So, for example, one member who has plenty of people skills but is not so bright can rely on one of his brighter colleagues to tell him/her how to vote on, say, financial services, which may be beyond them.
This may be true to an extent — one of the advantages of a party is that various members have different strengths — but I still want my representative to have the intelligence to at least have a basic grasp of each law that they vote on. I want them to be able to ask the right questions on my behalf, even if that happens behind closed doors in caucus or cabinet meetings.
Obviously, the party argument does not apply to candidates who run as independents as they are standing on their own abilities alone. Notably, all PACT/UPM members ran as independent candidates except for the current premier, whose allegiance to whatever party is in power appears so tenuous that I believe she should be regarded as an independent.
It is also true that part of an MP’s job is to look after the concerns of their constituents, and they might well have the clout to fix some issues outside the House of Parliament. But critically, they can also take those concerns to the House, where they can ask questions and influence policy.
However, the only lasting way for MPs to help their own voters is to be part of the process of making good laws. If your representative is on the backbench, how many private members’ motions have they filed in parliament? Did they ask any intelligent questions in the House? If they are Cabinet members, do you really think they understand the bills they table? Or are they just relying on the civil servants who support them?
People who fancy themselves as potential candidates don’t have to be lawyers, accountants, or economists; they don’t have to have a PhD or even a bachelor’s degree. The law does not require academic or professional qualifications to run for office, and I don’t believe that the brightest on paper are necessarily the best candidates.
Some people who left school at 16 embarked on a lifelong journey of learning and can out-think those who remained in academia. Some high-flyers just don’t understand the issues affecting the rest of us.
However, candidates should be able to convince voters that they have the brain power to do the job that they are applying for, which is to be a part of the legislative process. Voters do not need this ability, but they do need to be responsible enough to hire someone who can do the work.
That’s their job.
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The only thing that can be done is nothing and it will be done. Cayman Islands do not and never did have the will or even the intention to do anything better than surviving. Lots of time, money and effort has been spent on education and it only got worse. Same goes for traffic, law enforcement, and anything to do with quality of life. Unless you are just talking about the lives of Caymans leadership group. Free cars, ever growing paychecks with less work, free gas, free airfare(hotels included), free get out of jail cards, and the list grows longer every day with no accounting, no taking any responsibility for their actions or the lack there of. Like It or not makes no difference in the end and there is no capacity for change. Soon Cayman Islands(Caymania) will be saddled with their past debts that they can not pay and they can not survive. Then life gets better for everyone not Caymanian.
Excellent article. My mother Mary Lee Rowlandson (nee Hislop), second daughter of Charles Hislop and Clare (nee Watler), never attended university but she was and is smart and would have been devoted to making the right laws for the right reasons even if it was not very popular. She held various government board positions and successfully ran Cayman Against Substance Abuse (CASA) for ten years and has amazing references from other community leaders past and present including Sir Vassel Johnson whom she worked. She would have made an excellent MP. When I ran in a certain constituency I was staggered to learn of the extent of election/ voter interference from non-constituency agent(s) – definitely not saying that they or their actions were endorsed by the benefiting candidate – who were affiliated with a party candidate from a different constituency. Vote buying and conflicts of interest are a genuine problem in the Emerald isles and need to be averted if elections are to be as fair as can be. 🙏
The brain power of our lawmakers is adequate. All combined, it’s enough to light a small string of LED lights on the Christmas tree.
1 minuscule vanishingly dim LED light does not a string make
Agree and Disagree with this.
MPs do not need to necessarily be highly highly educated just nit be idiots. What is needed is a great deal of commonsense and half decent education.
And at least SOME integrity.
Read the article. The writer made that point.
I think this article is very unfair. To paraphrase Sir Talbot Buxomly
“It minds not me that some of our MP’s have the intellectual capacity of a particularly poorly educated Amoeba and talk like a plate of beans negotiating their way out of a cow’s digestive system. It is no skin off my rosy nose that there are bits of sea grass floating in North Sound that would make better MPs than them….. They are our MPs and it stand by them.”
This has nothing to do with intelligence.
The lawmakers are Freemasons. It is all about agenda. The subjugation of God. Good luck.
Tin Foil hate for 12.23… i need a tin foil hat for 12.23… the voices in their head are getting out again!
No politician wants the electorate to be smarter than they are…….. has anyone seen the recent reports on local education?
No politician wants the electorate to be smarter than they are
House plants are smarter than some of the people we have elected. But somehow they know that they only need 50% + 1 to get elected, or even less with more than one candidate in the donkey race.
Essentially, they only need enough dumb people to get them elected/re-elected, and they convince them that the rest of the voting population who are striving to do better is really working against their best interest. Paying their phone bill is absolute proof that everything the politician says is true.
John Gray High School has produced many scholars who attended prestigious universities and have made their mark on Cayman society. Unfortunately, the focus has always been on those who graduate without being able to read or write. They are then held up as an example of Cayman’s education system.
Totally agree that JG High School has produced many scholars who attended prestigious universities – I am married to one of them. Unfortunately every year something like half of the students don’t achieve expected results and far too many of our people leave high school without functional literacy or numeracy. Ultimately that is the fault of our leadership – at least in part. We need to do better.
Look at the laws relating to Civil Servants and that $470 million dollar annual expenditure. The country is run by the Governor, Deputy Governor and 22 Chief Officers, not the 19 MPs and not even the Cabinet. accountable. They hire and manage all staff. MPs are legally prohibited from having anything to do with personnel or productivity of the Civil Service. Hold the Minister AND the Chief Officer of Education and the head of the Department of Education Services accountable for Education outcomes.
4,400 Civil Servants across 19 constituencies. Big political clout. The tail wags the dog.
The quality of our elected leadership is heavily influenced by the quality of education that the electorate receives, as are the economic and social prospects of the electorate. Sadly our elected leadership, and the education system they are responsible for, have been failing our people for at least the past 25 years. This has been widely publicized year after year yet nothing is done to fix the problems. Perhaps that is so because it is to the advantage of our elected leadership.
https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/05/report-shows-school-leaver-results-drop-from-peak/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2022/04/almost-60-of-year-11-students-miss-2021-exam-targets/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2019/09/school-standards-gap/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2018/12/2018-year-11-exam-results/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2017/05/education-results-fall-in-2016-data-report/
Sadly, asking our current crop of politicians to improve the education offered in the government schools is like asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving.
Having heard recent comments from some politicians who currently hold powerful positions, I suspect that they will try to use the time remaining before the next election to breakdown the legal guard rails that protect the country from their excesses, as well as to increase and insulate the power that they are able to use for nefarious purposes. How do we stop that?
There is a bit more than 1 year before the next election. Perhaps over the coming months CNS should encourage readers to collectively frame a series of questions that can be put to people standing for election in order to help sort the wheat from the chaff.
For people standing for re-election, the questions could include what did they accomplish for the half million to million plus they were paid by the rest of us.
Great suggestion!
Let’s hold their feet to the fire and encourage new people to step up.
Over the past 25 years there has been an inverse relationship between legislator pay and the quality of legislators elected. It used to be that people who were interested in public service sought elected office. Now many who are only interested in personal profit seek public office and sadly are able to buy enough votes to get elected.
Caused by the single member constituency.
Can you believe the electoral boundary commission recommended increasing the number of MPs by 2?
Caymanians do not allow this already too big machine to get any bigger. Some MPs have constituencies of 600 people!
We need fewer MPs.
Thank you for putting together this concise and bluntly accurate narrative on the sad state of our benighted electorate base. I also like your choosing of a double entendre posting name. Brings to mind the infamous light pole incident in which case was struck by the one with the most questionable brain power in Parliament or should I say the lack thereof.
The facts are that other than Andre and Wayne our current government consists of uneducated unemployables with no understanding of duty, and totally devoid of integrity.
They have been elected by even less educated and even more unskilled Jamaican status holders relying on promises of hand outs.
We are now held hostage as we watch these parasites vacuum money from the public purse in pursuit of personal agendas aimed at reelection.
Would you trust Juju, Mac, Seymour, Saunders Jay or Bernie be in charge of ANYTHING let alone running Cayman..?
3.19pm Your comment is unfair to PPM elected members. None of whom are unemployable.
Q. Can someone be educated but not intelligent?
A.Education is the acquisition of knowledge, while intelligence is the ability to use that knowledge to think and reason. One can be highly educated but not necessarily intelligent
The world is a mess. There is a crisis of true leaders.
Intelligence is sensitivity to patterns. Education is sharing of observed patterns.
Not sure how one can be highly educated and devoid of intelligence as intelligence would be required to absorb the education in the first place. What you are saying doesn’t really make sense. you’re conflating intelligence with retainment and judgement essentially disregarding the actual definitions of the words. But ur right, the world is a mess. If only ppl would humble themselves.
Absolutely. There are plenty of highly educated University graduates with worthless degrees in nonsense subjects who are dumb as rocks.
Please father God, if McKeeva and JuJu don’t step down BOOT THEM OUT! And take Jon Jon with yah.
That’s the bestist prayer I’ve ever heard. I hope it is answered, SOON
I am going to ask every person running in the next election, and who comes to my door asking for my vote, who they would put in the position of Education Minister. This seems to be the crux of the problem. We need a good Minister of Education who is educated, passionate about making improvements and has the balls to follow through!
We need the list suggestion by 6.21 pm above to ask these turkeys.
This is an excellent Viewpoint that has attracted many valid follow-up posts. One previous comment in particular alluded to some very important questions that those who care about Cayman need to answer ASAP.
How do we encourage honest intelligent Caymanians who have some relevant life experience and can run for Parliament, to do so? What do we need to do to ‘have their backs’ once they get elected? How do we begin the process of pumping out the cesspit that now exists? We need to have that discussion.
Well, it’s very difficult to ‘have our backs’ is the answer. The electorate is small, constituencies are tiny, majorities are razor-thin, allegiances are written in sand, intelligent people make the incumbents look dumb so they realpolitik them out of the competition with money, dumbing down the debate, etc. Most of them are pigs so to debate them and try to beat them you have to get in the mud – and you now no longer look like the very thing you are: the honest intelligent Caymanian everyone wants in office. You look like just another dirty aspirant who probably has ulterior motives and was shunned by the private sector paradise etc. and people will say these things about you whether or not they are true and regardless of any nuances. Did you see Winston Connolly during his one term addressing the Legal Practitioners Bill – having to assert his right to an opinion on it and defend himself from criticisms that he ‘couldn’t hack it’? Look at Wayne – tried to organise a group of MPs around principles but they could not see past their narrow parochial interests and personal ambitions. The Progressives were the best part of Cayman’s democracy for 10-15 years but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now they think they are Kings-in-Exile, their Master Plan to sacrifice Cayman to direct specific revenue flows into their pockets and those of family members merely on hold. They keep going on about what an organised group they are, all on the same page – but with unpopular policies and no public trust. They have not won outright since 2005 and I highly doubt they will again.
So we have one party that is dead walking, and a a huge group of incumbents and hopefuls, and that’ll be the way things are until a new second party is organised.
You know what you could do? Funding. Advice. Encourage a Caymanian you admire to run for office. Get friends to encourage them. Join their election committees. Donate without expectation of anything in return other than quality representation and public administration. Keep up the drumbeat asking for better politicians. Those of us who want to serve and can do a better job than nearly every incumbent right out of the gate do exist. Money isn’t even the issue anymore, the job pays plenty no matter what level of the greasy pole you are at, especially with all the freebies and privileges. So tell that Senior Associate they are needed in their country’s Parliament instead of telling them how to make Managing Associate. Let them go. Tell Caymanian parents the truth that the private sector is a crapshoot even for an intelligent, well-educated Caymanian. This is a problem in the UK too – civil servants aren’t what they used to be. They used to come from Oxbridge – now they come from anywhere.
Just some ideas.
Thank you for an exceptionally powerful response!
Based on what you have written, it seems that now is the time that civic minded organisations and individuals should be organising ‘town hall’ events and encouraging the Caymanians we need to run for office to come out, put forward their positions, and try to organise themselves into a new party or coalition with proper principles and a plan that can take Cayman forward. I would be happy to help with that in my district. Are there others out there?
Wayne Panton – now that you have free time – please pay someone independent to find out what matters most to Caymanians across all constituencies across all three islands.
Please do this for the good of the country.
And start a new party while you’re at it. Even if you don’t run, start a party.
As a Caymanian parent of 2 mid-thirties highly educated civically minded Caymanian sons, who both have excellent professional careers ahead of them and who are eligible to stand for elected office and would make excellent politicians (IMHO), I can say that they are put off by the corrupt politics that has taken over this country in the past 25 years. There is a desperate need for our society to create alternatives to the current back room corrupt politics and mechanisms that will allow bright honest young Caymanians to put themselves forward as soon as possible. If we don’t do this before the next election, I fear that all will be lost.
If your 2 sons are put off by corrupt politics, PLEASE ask them to consider being part of the solution! We need more educated, moral and transparent young people in public life.
I would argue to take funding out of the picture altogether. We are not so large a country that candidates have a legitimate need for the levels of funding we see coming into the process. Where funding becomes a critical part of succeeding in political campaigns is where you start to see special and oversized interest pervade the process because they obviously have the most money.
Instead, level the playing field for exposure and campaigning activities with strict funding caps and rules (no carveouts for Party spending in addition to candidate spending), set specified and equal media time on public channels, and set public-funded moderated debates.
We are not so large, or so complex, that more than this would be necessary for an informed electorate. And it would at least reduce the strings attached by certain groups and individuals.
I meant more along the lines of funding necessary to start a new party. Thinking of a figure like Anton Duckworth who was Chairman of the Progressives for two decades.
Also, yes I’d love it if politics did not involve handouts in Cayman. It’s the main thing that puts me off. I do not want constituents coming to my house; I want them to call me or write me letters or see me during my office hours, and ask for policies that better their lives, not handouts. But the fact of the matter is that it does run on handouts for the most part. Why do you think every MP gets 60k they don’t have to account for, and spends a fraction of it on actual expenses? Because they all need a personal slush fund to pay people’s bills out of, because every time they do that, they buy a vote – maybe a whole family’s votes. Group after group of politicians have simply learnt how to do political business this way and organised their pay so that they are able to do it. It does not matter who you are, how principled you are, how upright and forthright you are, someone is going to come banging on your door thinking Cayman might as well be Jamaica, and they’ll be proven right.
We don’t have an informed electorate.
I would love to see what you suggest but I am not sure you appreciate how big of a legal and cultural change this would be. You’d have politicians and voters at a stalemate going ‘no more freebies?’ ‘No more freebies I’m afraid’ ‘Well F all of unna then’
Do you want to be the first politician to go down that road? Even if they all do it in unison – everyone who votes for the legislation will be tarred and feathered for making it illegal for them to give help. Voters won’t wear it.
I wish there was a solution here but I don’t see one right now.
We had politicians who went that road but they only lasted one term.
Insightful comment. Implement the poverty action plan is one ie reduce poverty/ meet persons basic needs. Candidates should also be urged to speak out against these actions and to strongly urge voters not to vote based on these overtones.
Are holders of Caymanian status allowed to run for office?
Sadly not. They are the ones with intelligence and integrity, therefore they are a threat to the existing imcumbants and their lifelone position at the trough.
Can we stop this bullshit please? There are hundreds of honest, upstanding, courageous, intelligent and capable multigenerational Caymanians and expats-now-status holders. Equally, there are hundreds if not thousands of of crooked, greedy, lying, opportunistic and self centered multigenerational Caymanians and expats-now-status holders.
Both groups have good and bad.
Maybe they are smart, we just ain’t the constituency.
I’m curious to know who the 2 are that the author whittled it down to. My guesses: Andre and Wayne?
Great Viewpoint! It is worthwhile emphasizing that for some, whatever moderate brain power and ‘street smarts’ they have, seems to be entirely focused on building and retaining power and the personal enrichment that flows from that power.
An accurate assessment!
sig: Boomer Caymanian
Brainpower of our lawmakers is questionable .. ditto for a lot of people on public boards or positions of authority in our society! There is zero sense of civic duty, holistic thinking, longterm planning, financial responsibility ..
Say that again for the people in the back. These public board appointments are given to political supporters who have no clue about governance, they sit and collect stipends for 4 years without any questions on how well they governed the body they were put in charge of.
Well said!
Refer to the recent Dhukaran report page 3 about voters learning how our economy works, in order to be able to vote in an informed manner.
Can we please have a serious discussion here about the traffic situation? How many traffic police, what is their budget, why no focus on getting traffic issues under control?????
Does knowledge of penal code (albeit from the wrong side of it) count as ability and experience in legal matters?
If you’ve done the crime, you can earn the MP dime!
gone are the days when we vote for persons because we like them.
look at the jobs the current group of MP’s had before they took office.
if you can’t run a bakery or a lube business how is the heck can you run a Ministry or a sophisticated country.
cayman wake up. If we get the next election wrong we are doomed.
A woman from Bodden Town told me many years ago that the reason she voted for candidate A over B was that A “had use to come and sit down in my yard and lick dominoes with me” while B “always had act too proud to do that sort of thing”. No mention of intellectual capacity or ability to read laws etc!! Just licking dominoes. She’s not alone in Cayman. That’s one of the reasons we keep electing brainless failures.
Watch the candidates run around to funerals to make speeches, and to hospitals to profess sympathy and glad hand patients from their districts. Great, but DO YOUR JOB AS WELL!!!
And a large GT family voted for Kenny because he apparently used to model!!!!
Passing out money to pay for telephone minutes, or cigarettes, or half a tank of petrol … fridges, turkey, ham …
Greed will always take precedent over country. The recent laws passed, who are they really benefiting ? Surly not the average Caymanian. When I look at the pretty roads and traffic still back up, pretty schools and Caymanians can’t get jobs, pretty airports yet CAL still operating at a loss, turtle meat named our national dish, yet the turtles are sick and dying and development/destruction of the environment, yet Caymanians cannot afford a piece of land. None of any of the recent laws really help Caymanians. Being a Caymanian actually reduces opportunities in the Cayman Islands unless you are well connected.
all very good…but you left out the most important part…the most qualified and best educated and successful caymanians are prevented from running for office.
welcome to wonderland
Who are they?
The only person who qualified was late Bo Miller. Gone too soon, cancer.
https://www.caymancompass.com/2018/04/09/visionary-bo-miller-dies-at-66/
https://www.caymancompass.com/2015/07/30/an-argument-against-cruise-berthing-facilities/
By the way nothing is being done in Cayman to prevent cancer. Scans and fundraisers doesn’t count. The level of toxicity in Grand Cayman is off the charts if someone bothered to measure.
Radiation safety, Incinerators emissions, noise pollution regulations don’t exist.
But hey, Cancer treatment Center is coming up. in the absence of radiation safety laws, regulations.
Did you know that after 10 years of administering chemotherapy nurses get cancer themselves? Do you think that chemo suitable gloves that they get are protecting them from anything?
But don’t let me start on the radiation safety in Cayman, neither hospitals/medical establishments staff, nor members of the public have a slightest idea what radiation safety is. Next time you are getting that quick and “safe” dental x-ray, ask your dentist why isn’t he/she protecting your thyroid? ASK for it to be protected and see what they say.
Cayman Cancer society is all about breast cancer. I needed information about my type of cancer, and they knew NOTHING. Talked to the guy in charge, and he’s all about the PR and rubbing shoulders with specialists etc.
It is a lucrative business that is why.
Pink this pink that but they still haven’t cracked that basic code, the treatment given is still medieval torture today. They either give you Radiotherapy, Chemotherapy Hormone treatment or cut you up like a piece of MEAT! The true advancement in cancer isn’t as ground breaking as they like you to think! Remember today we give Millions in donations each year to various cancer groups & the return is minimal! REMEMBER: Cancer is also a BUSINESS!
Word just in. The charities on island are mostly PR point exercises. Why do you think the humane society struggled once the dog walking didn’t count? Not much love after that change.
26 @ 8:14 pm – BS, your inference is disgusting! The most qualified, educated and successful Caymanians do not want to be associated with the puerile “hand-out” mentality that is Caymanian politics! Winston Connolly is one example….there are dozens who’ve never chosen to even run for that reason.
If, as you say, the most qualified, educated and successful Caymanians do not want to run for office, then they are complicit in perpetuating the problem of unqualified representatives in Parliament. Let them not complain.
Apartheid Cayman Style embedded in the constitution prevents a majority of Caymanians from running for office.
Please explain
Not everyone who is educated could be The Leader. One had to be a Visionary Leader.
“After trying out a number of ways to reduce inequalities and failing, I was gradually forced to conclude that the decisive factors were the people, their natural abilities, education and training. Knowledge and the possession of technology were vital for the creation of wealth.”
Lee Kuan Yew
“ The task of the leaders must be to provide or create for them a strong framework within which they can learn, work hard, be productive and be rewarded accordingly. And this is not easy to achieve.”
Lee Kuan Yew
Leaving aside viewpoints on MPs, current or past, very good points are made here. I would add that, especially when enacting or promulgating new legislation or amendments to comply with international legal obligations, ensuring that the legislation is feasibly workable, rational and proportionate and, of significant importance, does not infringe fundamental rights and freedoms (enshrined in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights) of Caymanians and residents is vital.
A deliberately dumbed down voting population will continue to vote for cretins. It’s all part of the plan.
Ah yes, most of the voting population is only good for partying, carnivals, Miami trips, anchor babies, etc. Thank god for the private sector.
I think the OPs point was that in failing to provide a proper education, our MPs are keeping Caymanians down and holding them back from opportunities (currently being lost to expats). The less Caymanians know and understand the more the politicians can screw us over, and the OP suggests that this is intentional. Think about it.
BINGO
stop votin in jackass life nah easy man send help
Now stop picking on Jon-Jon, he has a tough job to do. It is really hard to do absolutely nothing but dress up and look like a buffoon.
If you want to know the truth
It may be hard for most Caymanians to swallow.
Without a strong educational foundation, intellectual development is hollow.
With 2 high schools, no tertiary institution ‘worth its name’
A work force run by only few ‘legitimate college graduates ‘ and mostly ‘online paper graduates, Who never really trudged the competitive, interactive, docial adaptations of campus tertiary education.
What do you expect ?
How many true Caymanian ‘executive’ civil servants can work in similar capacity outside of Cayman?
The Cayman Airpor project, the highways expansion projects, HSA expansion, the Ports authority status all show the myopic mediocrity of what exist accross the board.
Jamaican begun their march to real ‘national development by ‘building more schools, and educational institutions
UWI got UTECH. Producing real accountants to head banking industry based on qualification and experience NOT their birth paper
School of Agriculture – innovation and increase in farming leading to exports
Marine college
Legitimate properly planned and accredited Nursing schools
HEART training for vocations that produce Csroebters, electricians
And
Many more countries did same
Bahamas, Trinidad, Barbados
None started with nationalism ans ‘birthright’
They used the experience and qualification of exoarts to their advantage, strengthening their people with Education by forcing them to be competitive until they actually began to export intellectual property and prifessionals who can go outside and compete anywhere in the world
Our schools are filled with angry students told in their homes that the teachers are ‘expats’ and hence don’t ‘hsve right to discipline them.
As a teacher, I look at these children and I weep for my country
So let no one talk about leaders and politicians
The national social identity and Ethos are build on an ‘attitude’ that is self destruction’ and hatred for others
Education is the first step
New schools
New curriculum
National reorientatiion to become integrated into 21st century of a world that is now connected
You’re so right about “ on line degrees. There’s one angry woman who keeps spouting “ I have a masters” , but it’s from California Coastal university. On line not requiring any academic proficiency, but it’s used as a platform to shout down dissenting opinions at board meetings.
Her Jamaican origins doom Cayman to a grim future of mindless self seeking which is sadly becoming prevalent .
This is easily the best, and truest Viewpoint I have ever read on CNS
Well said, bobo.
We need to know about their financial conflicts of interest!
not just theirs, their family and friends (which is where they divert the $ and why they hated and amended SIPL so much.