Internationalization

NUMBER 53, FALL 2008

Jamaica's Development Goals and GATS Commitment

Terence Frater
Terence Frater holds a PhD in comparative education from the University of Toronto. E-mail: tfrater@oise.utoronto.ca.

Jamaica, a small developing Caribbean nation that ranks among the most indebted countries worldwide is plagued by high rates of violent crime, unemployment of over 13 percent, migration of its graduates estimated at over 70 percent, and one of the lowest per capita GDP in the region. It is felt that higher education—a sector particularly linked to knowledge creation, social mobility, and economic growth—can play a pivotal role in the country meeting its development needs and overcoming its social and economic deficits. This is the sector currently most associated with trade liberalization and experiencing the greatest level of expansion across national borders. Jamaican higher education originated in the 1830s with the creation of teachers colleges and theological colleges and has since expanded into a diverse and complex system of public and private universities, colleges, and other institutions, which includes a growing number of cross-border providers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

The urgency to create more effective policy mechanisms for the sector and to become more competitive in navigating the complexities of emergent global accords became more acute for Jamaica with the changed geopolitical dynamics at the end of the cold war and the growing endorsement of free trade. However, the creation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)—the services agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—together with liberalization trends in education raised specific concerns that developing countries like Jamaica would be unable to implement higher education policies related to their development goals.

Jamaica's GATS Commitment in Higher Education
In 1994 Jamaica was among a number of developing countries to include higher education in its GATS Schedule of Commitments. In doing so, it assumed legally binding obligations in the sector and subjected policy initiatives to the governance of the WTO. Interviews with Jamaican politicians, in both government and opposition, and senior education and trade policymakers revealed negotiators were able, without consultation, to set a higher education agenda based on their own experience and beliefs dealing with other sectors of the economy. No process existed at the time to trigger dialogue between negotiators and education stakeholders. The GATS commitment appeared largely affected by a culture of liberalization and free trade, together with a sense of the need to expand access to higher education.

Jamaica is not unique in this regard. Around the globe, education stakeholders reacted rather late to trade liberalization trends occurring in the sector. They considered it a "public good," isolated from the marketplace. Consequently, trade negotiators were instrumental in crafting GATS commitments based on their own rationale—that is, contributing to economic growth, expanding access and enhancing quality.

Jamaican trade policymakers suggested that GATS presented opportunities to position the country's higher education sector as an export industry. They proposed marketing the country's internationally recognized English-language higher education system to Latin American students, similar to how Australia and New Zealand marketed their system to Asian students. These policymakers also regarded the emigration of Jamaican graduates as contributing positively to the economy in the form of remittances. They were less concerned about potential threats from liberalization and the WTO.

Education stakeholders, however, were ignorant of the initiative until it surfaced in public debate almost 10 years after coming into force. They regarded the GATS commitment as a threat to both equity in higher education and introducing safeguards to maintain the quality of the system. Additionally, they were greatly concerned about the presence of foreign providers and the potential of foreign credentials to exacerbate the migration problem. Nonetheless, the potential of the commitment to expand access to higher education was embraced.

Politicians in both government and opposition were also caught by surprise and questioned the capacity of the negotiators to have crafted without dialogue a higher education commitment based on a coherent education or development strategy. They were concerned about Jamaica's freedom to regulate the sector to meet its development goals. Government officials spoke of the "knowledge divide" separating rich and poor countries and recounted the daunting task, when attending international forums, of negotiating with countries vastly superior in human capital and financial resources. Still, neither politicians nor trade and education stakeholders suggested withdrawal of the commitment. Therefore, they called for greater dialogue to ensure Jamaica's interests could be safeguarded and the role of higher education in the development process preserved.

Conclusion
Jamaica now recognizes that education policy must objectively engage and balance the social and economic dimensions of knowledge creation and national development. This process requires dialogue between stakeholders in all relevant sectors, to align the country's development strategy with models for public policy and government's role in managing the system. Policymakers admitted the absence of a coherent framework to harness the opportunities and navigate the threats posed by GATS on higher education. There was no process in existence that might have inspired and supported the type of dialogue necessary between the education sector and trade negotiators. The challenge that Jamaica now faces is how to reconcile its GATS commitment of higher education with its development goals.

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number53/p13_Frater.htm