THE state of Guam’s young adults who entered high school between 2004 and 2007 is of great concern to Gov. Eddie Calvo.
In his weekly address, Calvo pointed out that approximately 12,556 young Guamanians entered high school during that timeframe and within four years, only 6,812 graduated with the remaining 5,744 unaccounted for.
“These are not just numbers. My fellow Guamanians, these are the 18- to 22-year-olds of today. Of this age group, 3,223 of them are already on welfare. Imagine what struggles they go through. Some of them are young parents. Some, but not many, are at UOG and GCC right now. How do they afford tuition? Daycare? The rent? The groceries?” he said.
Calvo chose this particular age group primarily because the students just graduated within the last few years.
“What I mean by that is that many students are not graduating with the skills and the core competencies they need to go to college and start a career. Many of them aren’t even graduating,” he stressed. “So what does that mean? What does that do? If 98 percent of graduating seniors are not proficient in 12th-grade math, then what opportunities have we given them to pursue careers as architects, engineers, math teachers, medical assistants, doctors, nurses ... name a field, and the math applies.”
Calvo said although employment opportunities are available, unemployment is still on the rise.
“When the freshman class of 2004 graduated from high school in June 2008, there were 43,850 private sector jobs on Guam. Today there are about 3,000 more jobs, and yet unemployment has shot up to over 13 percent. The problem isn’t that jobs aren’t available. The problem is that we’re not preparing all of our own people with the skills and well-rounded education to get those jobs,” he said.
Calvo emphasized that while the world has changed in the past 10 years because of technology, the education system has not budged in about 100 years.
“Kids these days don’t have to go to the library to find information, they can simply Google on an iPad. The jobs of today require employees to think critically and to solve problems, not to simply take orders. They need to read at a high level and make decisions. They need to operate systems and machinery that replaced manual labor. Times are changing dramatically, and so must we,” he said.
