The Barbados and Eastern Caribbean Jobs Opportunities for Business Scale-Up (JOBS) stems from a USAID worldwide initiative to promote post-secondary skills training and capacity building for the tertiary institutions. Many technical/vocational community colleges and higher education institutions in the United States and abroad have business schools and centers that are actively linked to industry and corporations. In many case, graduates of community colleges and business schools are more quickly employed due to their relevant studies and links to business.

With JOBS, post-secondary education institutions are encouraged to include core courses in business such as planning and management, financial planning and market analysis for their graduates. The intention is to prepare graduates who have an entrepreneurial spirit, whatever their area of study, to consider starting their own small business, to create jobs or to fill positions in growth sectors.

Entrepreneurship is the mindset and process to create and develop economic activity by blending risk-taking, creativity and/or innovation with sound management, within a new or an existing organization is critical in the stimulation of growth and ultimate employment of persons in the region.

It is new and small firms, rather than large ones, that are the major providers of new jobs. The current structural changes and concomitant social issues in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean countries, therefore, demand urgent attention be placed on the development of an entrepreneurial culture and the expansion of micro and small enterprises.

This partnership between the Cave Hill School of Business – University of the West Indies and Indiana University has inculcated that mindset and provided the necessary skills training for entrepreneurs.

This higher education partnership has also supported capacity building of the Cave Hill School of Business (CHSB) at the University of the West Indies (UWI) (www.uwichsb.org), in its quest to develop and expand its Centre for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.