An Education Needs Assessment of CARIFORUM Firms

that the region’s aspirations towards greater economic diversification in newer niche areas like the

coloured economies (especially blue, orange and green economies) were better reflected in the

stakeholder consultations findings than among the survey results. The survey failed to capture an

adequate representation of businesses operating in these spaces, which could potentially suggest

that membership of the targeted business support organizations where the surveys were distributed

did not include many of these types of firms. The stakeholder consultations also confirmed the

important influence of the SDGs on the region’s future development trajectory, another area that

was not fully captured by the survey results.

Trade liberalization, technological advancements, and innovations in a business organization

create global value chains that integrate more countries into the global market. Therefore, the

survey results suggest that CARIFORUM states are falling behind as the region’s wealth correlates

with local business growth. Among the currently exporting firms, export-related skills/knowledge

was not identified as a major challenge, but when considering that most of the surveyed firms were

not currently exporters and that export-oriented training was identified as a major need the

following conclusion can potentially be drawn. While export-oriented training may not represent

an urgent need for currently exporting firms, it appears to be a major skills-gap hindering the

participation of non-exporting firms in global value chains. The stakeholder consultations also

confirmed the need for greater export-oriented training to penetrate existing and access newer

markets in places like South America.

As it relates to existing training programmes, the desk research confirms that there are more

domestic initiatives than region-wide efforts. There is a demand for courses in local languages (in

particular, among non-English speaking firms); offer a mixed delivery mode with greater emphasis

on face-to-face, and that greater emphasis be placed on practical training with implementable

outputs, rather than academic/theoretically focused programmes. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is

that training programmes need to be cost effective, as prohibitive costs continue to limit the private

sector’s participation in these activities. From the stakeholder consultations it was clear that greater

collaboration with regional partners to develop and launch these programmes would be vital, and

many of the interviewed partners are ready to support such collaborations.

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