In his address to Parliament on the 2024 Budget, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell addressed the inefficiencies within the education system beginning with the Imani program, the flagship initiative of the former Keith Mitchell-led regime to address youth unemployment.

He questioned the Imani program’s ability to help young people get out of “no man land” when it came to employment.

“… Our education system was producing people who are giving credentials of subjects and that they were leaving school at the age of sixteen, not yet an adult and they are being asked to fend for themselves and that the only two institutions in Grenada that could take them was NEWLO, a non-government institution… and T.A. Marryshow Community College. That was known,” explained the Prime Minister.

He also conveyed that annually hundreds of young people are leaving secondary school with no skills or knowledge of skills.

The National Security Minister remarked that persons who decided to join the IMANI program are being underpaid and due to low pay, they would now have to depend on others which is creating a vicious cycle.

“Instead of seeking to address the fundamental root problem, which is our education system, what we sought to do was plaster on it by creating the IMANI program which ultimately leads to a situation where people are locked in,” the Prime Minister told Parliamentarians.

He stated that by not dealing with the root cause of the problem this was leading multiple generations into a “cycle of poverty” under the program.

During the presentation of the 2024 Budget, Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall announced a $500.00 monthly increase in the average EC$700.00 paid to the Imanis.

Acknowledging that change does not work “overnight,” PM Mitchell revealed that the Ministry of Education has started technical and vocational education and training at the primary school level.

He also stated that the mandatory school leaving age will be raised to eighteen years old in September 2024.

He reinforced the decision by announcing, “It means that we recognise that allowing you to leave school at fifteen and sixteen years old when you are not an adult with little to no exposure to skills training puts you in a position where you are almost unemployable.”

“And you therefore become unemployed… and fall into the category of the youth who are poor,” he quipped.

Speaking to members of Parliament, PM Mitchell argued that the government is “obligated” to make moves towards solving the issues in the education system.

He disclosed that students at the primary and secondary school levels will be exposed to technical and vocational skills and training under Congress.

The Prime Minister lamented that the education system was often referred to as “outdated” and “outmoded” for the current society.

The MP for St. David disclosed that discussions have begun with NEWLO as well as the National Lotteries Authority to help out the situation.

He announced that assistance for students in curriculum development will begin to make sure “people between sixteen and eighteen” will be able to gain technical and vocational education.

Male students aged eleven and twelve who do not enter the secondary school level were also a topic of discussion in the Prime Minister’s address.

He indicated that with students not passing the Caribbean Primary Exit Assessment (CPEA) exam, they “drop out” of the school system.

“If you drop out of school at twelve years old, what life are we confining them to? His Majesty’s prison,” he remarked.

PM Mitchell stressed that technical skills at the primary level is “paramount” to guarantee that the young men are not “abandoned.”

This, he said, will allow young men to acknowledge that everyone is not academically inclined or would like to pursue academics.

Digital skills will also be added to the list of technical and vocational skills according to PM Mitchell.

“More than ever, if there is a skill that every young Grenadian must acquire; it is digital skills. If we do not do so we will be left behind.”

Complementing the thoughts of Grenadian-born Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) Timothy Antoine regarding the “preoccupation of subjects”, PM Mitchell said that students should learn skills such as typing techniques.

“Typing replaces writing. If you cannot type, you almost can’t live in the world… When young people leave school and they come for a job… they can’t type. They have no exposure to Microsoft Suite. They have no exposure to Adobe Suite. These are the prerequisites,” he said.