Panama’s capital city hosted a top level forum to analyse the most relevant issues in terms of education, employment, and their impact on businesses’ productivity.

The “II Business Forum Sustainable jobs, competitive companies”, organized by the Council of the Private Sector for Educational Assistance (COSPAE) was developed in Panama with over 200 attendants.

The event was attended by logistics, construction, sea industries, and tourism companies, as well as representatives from the ministers of Education (MEDUCA), Labour (MITRADEL) and Social Development (MIDES), closely linked to youth labour and training. There were also representatives of the Latin American Development Bank (CAF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and academics from public and private Panamanian universities.

The goal was to debate on the situation of youth employment sustainability and its impact on businesses productivity.

The forum is a “space to propose strategies aimed to strengthened youth employment, by reflecting and discussing the close link there is between the creation of sustainable jobs and the improvement of businesses competitiveness”, claimed COSPAE.

One of the considerations that came out of the debate was that the investment on pre-school education that some Latin American governments make is not enough. This results in the lack of skills among young people entering the labour market, said Eduardo Vélez Bustillo, expert of the Latin American Development Bank (CAF).

“The Latin American context presents deficiencies in early education investments”, he claimed during his lecture on “Technical Education and Professional Training: Challenges for Latin America”.

“A good job has been done, covering pre-school levels and on in countries such as Chile and Mexico. However, other countries have undergone a drop in the integral development of children during initial education, which involves the cognitive, emotional, and nutritional area, among others”, said Velez Bustillo.

The expert pointed out that there is problem among children aged 7 to 8 years old, who attend public schools, regarding learning to read. This problem prevents them from developing in other areas.

“Once they arrive to high school and start training on skills linked to labour, that logic sequence cracks”, stated Velez Bustillo.

A new conceptual scheme of labour and productivity skills must be implemented right on the early stage of education.

“There is no country with a perfect system in terms of education, training and technique (…), that is why learning and reforming is key”, pointed out the expert in economics and sociology, who is also a researcher of Chinese and American universities. “Countries must connect the educational offerings to the demands of the market.”

“No economic development can be achieved without knowing how to improve the capacity of the human resource”, concluded Velez Bustillo.