Chevannes against mandatory youth programme
RESPECTED social scientist, Professor Barry Chevannes, is not in favour of introducing a mandatory programme for youth, but says the existing National Youth Service (NYS) should reposition itself to attract more young people.
“I don’t think we have to mandate these things. The NYS should make itself attractive so that young persons will take a year off to work in an agency, and use the opportunity to build their knowledge and character as well as to help make career choices,” he said on Wednesday.
Chevannes, a professor of social anthropology and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the West Indies, was responding to questions following his delivery of the second annual NYS lecture at the Hilton Kingston Hotel.
The extremely high levels of violent crime, committed mostly by unskilled, unemployed young males, have prompted calls for a mandatory programme, with a military component, to instil discipline and values in young men.
But Chevannes suggested that the NYS needs to reposition itself, so that young persons will view it as a “dress rehearsal” to discover themselves before moving into the world of work or further studies.
The NYS, he said, was an extremely dynamic organisation in the 1970s, one in which young people were excited to be involved.
He added that making programmes mandatory have not worked in Jamaica, noting the example of mandatory sentencing for the possession of ganja.
“Once you mandate something, then it is our interest to sabotage it, and we have had great experience in sabotaging things”, Chevannes said.
He pointed to a World Bank report that stated that giving boys incentives to go onto tertiary education was an effective way of combating crime.
Reverend Adinair Jones invited the audience to introduce young men to the NYS, in particular those who were idle and unattached to any institition. He said the NYS had a good track record of helping to reform the lives of young people.
Reverend Jones later told the Observer that the NYS had recently changed its focus to the males, and was now catering to 60 per cent males to 40 per cent females. He said the NYS has increased its capacity from 5,000 to 8,000 and would be increasing its numbers by 1,000 each year in the future.
Established in 1973, the National Youth Service was re-launched in 1995 after a 12-year break amidst major concerns about the high level of youth unemployment, academic underachievement, the lack of training opportunities for young people and their escalating trend toward anti-social behaviour. Its mandate is to tackle youth issues and make a meaningful impact on the number of unattached youth (unemployed and not enrolled in school) in Jamaica, which now total over 140,000.