Enrolments increase at College as downturn adds value to education
Education is the key to being successful in the current economic crisis and beyond.
That is the view of Dr. Duranda Greene, president of Bermuda College, who said that enrolment numbers were up for the forthcoming term compared to last Spring, in line with past years during economic downturns, including 2000 to 2001.
Dr. Greene said there had been a lot of interest in courses such as business, liberal arts (psychology, sociology, English and communications) and sciences (nursing and health care).
But she added that there was still a good opportunity for Bermudians to train in hospitality and service-related subjects, industries where there is a big demand for local talent.
"I think whenever you go through an economic downturn there is an opportunity for all of us to take stock of life in general and in particular careers and education," said Dr. Greene.
"During all downturns, enrolment in higher education normally goes up and in the last economic downturn in 2000 to 2001 we saw that."
Dr. Greene said that since 2000 to 2001 enrolment figures declined and tapered off, but there has been an upturn this year in advance of the new semester, which starts on Monday, helped by the free tuition initiative for Bermudians introduced by Government.
She said former students who attended the College about 11 years ago, including single parents, were coming back to further their studies in evening and day classes, while others were looking to improve their education for their current position or to retrain for another career, areas in which there had been an increase in numbers for 2009.
However, there was still a big shortage of Bermudians filling roles in some key sectors, as borne out by the statistics from the 2007 ManPower Study.
The largest gaps in the workforce for local talent included actuaries, with only 12 percent Bermudians employed in that field, nannies 16 percent and chefs/cooks 20 percent (see table).
"There are a lot of areas that are highly concentrated and available to Bermudians if they become trained," said Dr. Greene.
"Every one of those areas listed in the survey can be started at Bermuda College and during economic downturns people look for value for money and when you compare $50,000 for the first two years of a course overseas against $1,800 for the same here it is obvious where you can get it from."
She said the College's Career Counselling Centre had been very busy with prospective students looking at what courses were available, what their career options were and getting assessed by career advisers.
Another fact was that 47 percent of the Island's population did not have a post-secondary school education, according to the 2000 Census, down from 57 percent in 1991, which may serve as a wake-up call for high school students to make the most of their education and not just rely on getting a job in the family business, while education goes exponentially hand in hand with income as it is furthered/increased, said Dr. Greene.
"It is an opportunity when you go through hard times," she said. "We have got budget managers here at the College who have been asked to look at their budgets and see what we can do to save money — we have not got an allocation from Government yet, but have been taking steps now to become more prudent with the funds we already have.
"My hope is that even though we are going through an economic downturn, at the end of this we will see Bermudians have a better work ethic and be prepared for work and not just think they have to show up."
THE SHORTFALL
B>Profession Bermudians %
Actuaries 14 of 119 12%
Nannies 24/149 16%
Chefs/cooks 179/881 20%
Waiting staff 262/950 28%
Beauticians 46/159 29%
Landscapers 115/394 29%
Registered nurses 175/460 38%
Housekeepers 90/280 29%
Masons 309/768 40%
Underwriters 192/392 49%
Secondary teaching 163/324 50%
Computer analysts 228/419 54%
Financial managers 521/930 56%
Lawyers 210/334 63%
Carpenters 238/367 65%
Exec. secretaries 913/1048 87%
Source: 2007 ManPower study