UWI co-ordinator offended by claims Afro-Trinis not enterprise-minded

An emotional Dr Olabisi Kuboni, campus co-ordinator of the UWI Distance Learning Education Centre, yesterday took offence at claims made by Arthur Lok Jack, Principles of Fairness moderator, that Afro-Trinidadians were merely satisfied with “a good public service job” and were not enterprise-minded. Dr Kuboni was applauded for her outspokeness and came close to tears during her presentation on the topic, “Educating for a fair and just society”, at the Principles of Fairness Conference held at the Learning Resource Centre, University of the West Indies, St Augustine.

“I disagree with Mr Lok Jack. I would not be standing here if it was not for the merging together of a very sound background of generations of my family being involved in enterprise, of seeing about your own business. It is because of the efforts of my grandparents as well as my mother who is a teacher. You have to be careful when you make these stark statements about the society,” Dr Kuboni said. In his summation following an audience discussion, Lok Jack said that young Afro-Trinidadians were content to be followers and not leaders and needed to get to the level of equity. He added that young Indo-Trinidadians, on the contrary, were already into “transactional business” because of growing up in a business environment. “A young (Afro-Trinidadian) man came to me saying that he was told by his parents to get a good public service job.

So it is a matter of  the environment. The difference with the young Indo-Trinidadian is that he would go around and do what he has to do even mobilising his family to raise money.” He said that education was the biggest asset our nation can give to young people and because an imblance existed between Indo and Afro-Trinidadians, a large part of the African community was locked out of the economic pie. Dr Kuboni’s presentation was followed by that of Ardene Sirjoo, UWI guild member, who questioned the credibility of the conferences drawing attention to “the public display” by authority figures in the run-up to the conference.

She said such “behaviour” only exacerbated and perpetuated racial and cultural tensions among members of society. However, Sirjoo stressed the need for policy implementation if principles of fairness were to be effective. Also addressing the small gathering were Professor Patricia Mohammed, acting head of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies; Dr John Agard, senior lecturer in the faculty of Life Sciences; Dr Bishnu Ragoonath, senior lecturer and head of the Government Unit in the Department of Behavioural Sciences; Dr John Campbell; and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences Dr Hamid Ghany.