Globalisation and Human Resource Development in the Caribbean

Given the importance of human resource development in defining the competitiveness of economies in the globalisation era, the paper evaluates the performance of the Caribbean in the education sector vis-à-vis several comparator countries – the Newly Industrialised Economies of East Asia (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea); the New Tigers (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia) and a group of developed countries (US, UK, Japan). The paper also reviews the performance of the Caribbean with respect to manufacturing exports and particularly high technology manufacturing exports and ICTs. In both the education sector indicators, the manufacturing and the ICT indicators, there is generally a significant gap between the Caribbean and the comparator countries. The paper then looks at specific issues related to the previous discussion. These include the need for skills enhancement of the labour force; the need for a regional technological development strategy; the role of ICTs in human resource development and the strategies for human resource development in the high performing Asian countries.