Preview

Caribbean Human Capital Development

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1214 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Caribbean Human Capital Development
Caribbean Human Capital Development

Caribbean political leaders such as Sir Grantley Adams (Barbados), Sir Norman Manley (Jamaica) and Dr. Eric Williams (Trinidad) believed in the principle of enhancing Human Capital. Assess the advantages and disadvantages of the Human Capital Theory in its application to Caribbean societies.
As the world industrializes, the desire to optimize efficiency and maximize profits is paramount to societal development. Many have written on this, proposing numerous theories on how the worker may perform at his/her best using ethical methods or motivation. One such ideology is the Human Capital Theory. Introduced by Adam Smith, the ‘father of economics’, this theory seeks to create a link between education of the worker and enhanced productivity. This school of thought will be discussed in this essay, along with its merits and demerits in applying it to Caribbean society.
Human capital theorists believe that the economic success of a business is directly proportional to the education of its labour force. It is a functionalist idea that reveres the meritocratic system of education. It advocates the moving away from manual labour and seeks to develop a specialized population whose expertise will facilitate capital accumulation and ultimately, the progress of the country as a whole. The theory has been embraced by some of our most instrumental leaders, such as Sir Grantley Adams of Barbados and Dr Eric Williams of Trinidad. As a result, these individuals placed a great emphasis on the education of the masses and constructed many schools on the islands. Perhaps the most evident and successful sign of these efforts was the birth of the University of the West Indies, which has greatly aided in the creation of a Caribbean intelligentsia. However, recently, the rapid acceptance of this model has come into question. To what extent has it been successful in the Caribbean?

Firstly, the Human Capital Theory was initially beneficial because it

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Human capital is the productive potential of the knowledge, skills, and capabilities of individuals that generate economic output. Martin (2005) explained that” individuals exchange effort for reward, and acquire human capital in the expectation that their incomes…

    • 1087 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    bba economics

    • 2217 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Benhabib, J. and Speigel, M. (1994) ‘the Role of Human Capital in Economic Development: Evidence from Aggregate Cross-Country Data’, Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol.34, No.2, pp.143-173…

    • 2217 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Thomas, Y Clive., The Poor and the Powerless: Economic Policy and Change in the Caribbean London: Latin America Bureau, 1988)…

    • 6097 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bibliography: Bridget Brereton, “Society and Culture in the Caribbean: The British and French West Indies, 1870-1980” in F.W. Knight and C.A. Palmer, The Modern Caribbean, 85-110.…

    • 1693 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    United Nation Programme." Caribbean Human Development Report on Citizen 2012". NUDP. n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013…

    • 761 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    (including how they fit together and how they impact upon individuals), and the dynamics of human…

    • 15525 Words
    • 80 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Hr in Kazakhstan

    • 27410 Words
    • 123 Pages

    McLean, G. N., & McLean, L. D. (2001). If we can’t define HRD in one country,…

    • 27410 Words
    • 123 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    education and human capital

    • 9024 Words
    • 37 Pages

    Human capital is a crucial factor that determines productivity of a country and is a key…

    • 9024 Words
    • 37 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Education builds the man so it builds the nation. Today we claim to be the biggest human resources supplier for the world, but are we concerned what quality of human capital we are building and for whose needs? We supply bureaucrats to the government, software engineers to the IT companies around the world, highly paid managers to the multinationals, we supply engineers and science graduates as researchers to the foreign universities. What capital are we building for ourselves?…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Per Capita income is the total income earned from goods and services produced by a country in one year divided by the total population for that country in that year.…

    • 1349 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Economists and development experts have always maintained that human resource is a significant factor for achieving high economic growth and improve the standard of living in any country. They assert the undisputed fact “the real treasure of any country is its human resource”. According to Harbison (1973), human resources are the energies, skills, talent and knowledge of people which are, or which potentially can or should be applied to the production of goods or the rendering of useful services. Harbison & Myers (1964) posits that "human resources development is the process of increasing the knowledge, the skills, and the capacities of all the people in a society. In economic terms, it could be described as the accumulation of human capital and its effective investment in the development of an economy. In political terms, human resources development prepares people for adult participation in political processes, particularly as citizens in a democracy. From the social and cultural points of view, the development of human resources helps people to lead fuller and richer lives, less bound by tradition. In short, the processes of human resources development unlock the door to modernization". Human resource development (HRD) can therefore be explained as the use of training, organization and career development efforts to improve individual, group and organizational effectiveness. From the foregoing explanation, it could be said that education is imperative if the goals of HRD is to be achieved. Harbison regards human resource as constituting the ultimate basis for the wealth of nations. Adam Smith, who is cited as the “father of modern economics”, states that the capacities of individuals depended on their access to education. Returns on investment in education based on human capital/resource theory have been estimated since the late 1950s and this led to series of United Nations (UN) sponsored conferences to…

    • 3002 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In many Commonwealth Caribbean Countries since the early 1960’s, there have been attempts at Public Sector Reform by replacing the traditional system of Public Administration with what is commonly known as New Public Management and to this day, the successful implementation of such structural adjustment attempts have evaded most Governments who have dared to try. It was evident, however, that there were differences in the way each country attempted to introduce NPM. Jamaica and Barbados, for example, adhered rigorously to the primary tenets of NPM and Trinidad and Tobago by implementing some measures but not others. Human resource management (HRM) is a term which is now widely used but very loosely defined. It should be defined in such a way as to differentiate it from traditional personnel management and to allow the development of testable hypotheses about its impact. Based on theoretical work in the field of organizational behaviour it is proposed that HRM comprises a set of policies designed to maximize organizational integration, employee commitment, flexibility and quality of work. Within this model, collective industrial relations have, at best, only a minor role. Despite the apparent attractions of HRM to managements, there is very little evidence of any quality about its impact or that of New Public Management. However, the purpose of this paper is to review and analyze some of the different approaches to Human Resource Management, New Public Management and Industrial Relations initiatives used in Trinidad and Tobago and the extent to which the introduction…

    • 5397 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Analysis: Human capital

    • 1713 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Human capital can generally be defined as the set of skills which someone acquires on the job, through training and experience, and which increase that person’s value in the market place. Any activity that increases the productivity of labor may be considered an investment in human capital (McConnell, 2009). Company can spend not only on formal education for employees, but also can spend on informal training. In addition, providing them with health or other benefits could also improve employees’ productivity. According to Dereck Jones (2008), investment in human capital benefits both the employee and the employer. For instance, when a company invests in training, Jones posits that the company benefits through increased efficiency in the production process and thus experiences increased and quality production while the employee benefits from having an easier time at work.…

    • 1713 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Managing Human Capital

    • 5155 Words
    • 21 Pages

    SLIDE 1 - INTRODUCTION London School of Commerce(2013,P.22) in a way mentioned that in order to be competitive in the current challenging business world, an organization needs to ensure that on top of having a good and positive driving vision and mission statement, the most important asset is being studied and taken care of. In this context, the manpower (also better known as Human Capital) for an organization needs to be treated as an asset; instead of company expense (typical treatment onto manpower in most of the organizations)i. With this type of importance, Human Capital Management enriched with Strategic approaches is needed in ensuring that Human Capitals are being developed and invested in the aspects of know-how, technical skills and also attitudes, The ultimate target is for these Human Capital to eventually contribute back to the Organization’s Culture and future successes. As the first stage of CTM Malaysia’s foundation was mostly involving projects and construction stage, the needs for us to seriously looking into the effectiveness of our Human Capital Management (HCM) was put aside temporarily. Now that CTM Malaysia is already at the normal production stage, it is critical for us to now look into the HCM aspects seriously. Therefore, in line with this, my presentation today is designed to address the main issues and challenges that we; as an organization, face currently globally and locally. At the same time I would like to share my views on the gap between CTM’s HR Agenda against the Employees’ Expectation (People Agenda) with the challenges in aligning…

    • 5155 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Human capital can be described as the skills training and health acquired through on the job training and education Michael Pakistan Park in defines it as:…

    • 1851 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays