There is no doubt that as a country we need to come up with some steps, some policies and initiatives to save our boys. The young men in our society today, starting from they are in primary school, are falling behind our girls. This continues right up to the tertiary level where some 80% of the students are females. There is therefore a continued marginalization of our young men. As this continues, we will have fewer and fewer educated, trained and technically competent young men in our society. This is not good for a number of reasons.
The first one that comes to mind is the reality that the very qualified young women, after graduating from university, will either have to marry someone below their educational standards or look abroad for a husband. It is not likely that qualified young women will take a husband from a bunch of young men who spend their days “on the corner”, kneading ganja into the palms of their hands or twisting their hair at the side of their heads. As these young men fall behind and drop out of school they often resort to criminality and the use of drugs. We cannot continue building this “bank” of marginalized young men. These are young men who are not employable in positions requiring high skills. Being uneducated and untrained they can only enter the labour force as unskilled labourers, earning minimum wage or slightly above.
There was a time when a collective effort was made by the Government and community groups to inculcate discipline, values and high standards in our young men. In those days members of the community assisted with growing up and mentoring the younger men of the community. There were vibrant 4-H Clubs, scout groups and Boys Brigade among others. These groups saw our young men being spoken to regularly by persons with leadership qualities and by persons whose lifestyle was worthy of emulation. Today most of our young men look to the television and to dancehall artistes for example. The churches and indeed all religious groups should join hand in a non-denominational effort to focus on our young men and to develop programmes and policies, the implementation of which will assist in rescuing our young men.
