Nothing else can save it. We need to take a page out of Israel’s book and enact laws that obligate all Jamaican countrymen and women at the age where graduation from secondary school is reached for service to the country.
Jamaica — like so much of the world — is a casualty of all roads leading to Rome. Being so close in the shadow of the United States dooms Jamaica to lose its best and brightest to higher pay and qualitatively better standards of living in the U.S. What country can withstand economic currents that induce so many to leave and seek fortune? None. Emigration — whether legal or not — is going to happen. So, to mitigate the ill effects of those who take the roads to Rome — and these effects take the form of underdevelopment, unemployment, and ill-educated youth as the immediate result of even Jamaican teachers seeking their own fortunes abroad — enact legislation that obligates all Jamaican citizenry upon graduation of high school to give two years of their life to the Jamaican military. And make it so that no amount of money makes one immune from this obligation. If a person leaves the country then they have to pay a prohibitively high amount of money. If they don’t pay it then they are accused of stealing from the country. They give the time or they don’t leave. If someone fails to finish high school then this forces them into a military service, and their time in the army is lengthened by the amount of time they should have remained in school. Also, there should be two requirements that enable one to graduate from this conscription: the obligated amount of time spent within it and acquiring a high school diploma — or some general equivalent of such a document.
In this capacity these youth will be drilled militarily, academically and help to buttress the ailing Jamaican infrastructure. This means that these kids with so much idle time on their hands will clean the streets, paint the walls, make the paints, and the brooms and even the soap for these tasks. The objective of this program will be to ensure that the youth able to accomplish all types and all rigors of employment, and this criteria will have to be met by all of the youth, from the most economically privileged to the least.
Jamaica needs to foster a culture of self-discipline and rigor. There is no other way to do it. Their simply isn’t.