Some Bahamian university students are opting out of returning to The Bahamas to build their careers and start their families because they claim the government has failed to deliver on promises that affect their future.
They noted that entry-level positions in The Bahamas are not worth the effort devoted to their studies.
In his budget communication to Parliament last Wednesday, Prime Minister Perry Christie pointed to the challenge of youth unemployment, which at last reports was still above 30 percent.
He announced that $22 million has been allocated in the new fiscal year for a job training and apprenticeship program.
But that program is not geared toward attracting Bahamians with university degrees who are searching for opportunities in their home country.
For various reasons, some of these young Bahamians see no reason to come home.
Charlsea Maynard, a fourth-year, bio-medical physics major, is one of them.
The 21-year-old is concerned about the current state of technology in public hospitals.
“The scope of my dream as a surgeon would be severely hindered by the lack of modernization of our surgical rooms, and equipment,” Maynard said.
“I also feel as though I won't have the power to change that, due to the monopoly of power the government has on public health so it's like I can't even come [back home] to make it better.”
Maynard also fears it would be difficult for her to advance in her field.
She said, “Socially, being a woman in The Bahamas is difficult. Being one of that profession makes it worse in terms of obtaining respect [from] my male counterparts.”
Maynard is not the only university student who feels that development in The Bahamas is not progressing at the pace of some other countries.
Fané Austin, a student at Florida International University, said she is not only worried that she won’t find a job, but that she would be underpaid for her qualifications.
Austin, who is in her third year of university, said, “[As a civil engineering major], we design structures, [and] oversee the process of building structures, and I feel like they do not build much structures like how they do in America.”
She left high school in 2013 with the idea that there would not be opportunities for her to seize upon returning home. Now 20 years old, her decision remains the same.
“I know a lot of people who have degrees and cannot find a decent job that is actually in their specific field that they went to school for,” Austin said.
“So I came to the conclusion [of not coming home] before, but also after I decided my major because a couple times a week, the advisor at my university sends us new job offers for people specifically in my major.
“There are so many more opportunities in America. Jobs come to you there if you're qualified, but in The Bahamas you really have to search for a job.”
The Bahamas was ranked 18th of the top 20 countries with the highest emigration rates by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Students like Terae Sweeting appreciate their upbringing in The Bahamas, but compare the experience of finding work at home versus finding higher paying jobs abroad.
Sweeting, a 24-year-old who graduated from Benedict College as an accounting and finance major in 2014, said, “As a college undergrad, I was exposed to many networking organizations that helped me to grow and develop and secure a job in Atlanta at a Big Four accounting firm.”
Ernst & Young, PWC, Deloitte and KPMG are the four largest international accountancy firms and are collectively referred to as the Big Four.
“I don't see the Bahamian government investing in the youth and young adults the way I was impacted in the United States,” Sweeting said.
Sweeting began her career at a Big Four accounting firm in The Bahamas immediately after graduating, but noted that her offer in Atlanta was more advantageous.
“We have very talented individuals in The Bahamas, but as an employee in a foreign country we get paid almost twice as much or more,” said Sweeting, who now works in the Cayman Islands.
“As a Bahamian working in another Caribbean country, I have the opportunity to live on my own, because I can afford it. The cost of living is so high in The Bahamas, that it forces us to live with our parents until we can some day make enough to survive on our own,” Sweeting said.
According to some young Bahamians, finding a job often depends on who they know is in power.
Andre Rahming, a 19-year-old finance major in his second year at the University of The West Indies, said, “As a high-schooler, you always say ‘Once I work hard and present myself as the best person for the job, I’ll be fine’.
“But if you ever tried to get a job, you would realize very quickly that you had an infinitely better chance of getting that job if your uncle’s wife, [or] sister-in-law’s friend is the HR manager. So you say to yourself, if I’m the best candidate and I don’t get the job because I didn’t know anyone, why would I put myself through that when I can go to America where everyone presumably gets a fair chance to succeed?”
Is all hope lost?
While pursuing careers abroad may seem like the best option for some university students presently, some claim they have not lost all interest in returning eventually.
Raleigh Seymour, 21, is a third year aviation major at Florida Institute of Technology, who decided to start his career in America instead of returning home after he graduates. He attributed his decision to the job saturation in his field of study.
“I would rather stay here and work where the aviation industry is on the verge of hiring thousands of pilots,” he said.
“I haven’t ruled out coming home altogether because I do plan to open a legit flight school in The Bahamas. One day I hope to make it less expensive for our future Bahamian pilots to get the training they need.”
Rahming and Seymour feel that while The Bahamas has its faults, the cornerstone of them returning is being the change they want to see.
The government pushed projects like Baha Mar, which aimed to train and employ young Bahamians in entry-level positions.
According to the former director of Baha Mar Academy, Kristin Wells, Baha Mar aimed to reverse the issue of the university students emigrating after graduation through outreach strategies.
In 2014, Wells said, “In addition to running social media campaigns directly targeting Bahamians abroad, the Baha Mar Academy has taken the fairly unprecedented step of traveling to destinations in the U.S., U.K. and Canada to host career networking events, encouraging Bahamians who have left to reconsider coming home.”
According to former Minister of Education Alfred Sears, there is a need to target young Bahamians who are deterred from returning home after studying abroad because they question the productivity and safety of The Bahamas.
In a 2014 interview with National Review, Sears insisted that Bahamians have lost the sense of being able to make a difference.
Sears attributed the youth not having a sense of the country’s direction to the lack of a bipartisan national development plan.
Fast forward to 2016, when the government has taken a bipartisan approach in “the shared vision for education 2030”, according to Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald said this initiative encourages a higher standard of education and job readiness for high school and university students.
He hopes to address the issue of brain drain and diversification of the economy by adjusting high school curricula.
The recently instituted Bahamas High School Diploma now requires 10th grade students to select subjects relevant to their anticipated career paths and offers apprenticeship programs.
However, many students feel that what they are studying in university does not align with where the job market is heading in The Bahamas.
Jade-Erin Mitchell, Guardian Intern
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