Because this is a “popular” undertaking that supposedly offers a simple solution to a simple problem, lawmakers handed your money to NMTI just like that — without reviewing the institute’s setup, its business plan, start-up costs, its officers, facilities, fees, curriculum, personnel, salary levels, etc. Like the islands’ amnesiac media, lawmakers never asked what ever happened to NMC’s own vocational program and the millions of dollars spent on it. No one mentioned the vocational classes offered by public high schools either.
It’s as if the concept behind the creation of the institute just fell from the sky recently, and it is the long-lost key to solving the CNMI’s dependence on foreign labor. Which is, incidentally, NMC’s primary mission when it was created…27 years ago.
I do not question the sincerity of NMTI’s proponents. Everyone who cares for the commonwealth shares their goal. But if the institute’s backers say there is a pressing need for NMTI in light of the military buildup on Guam, then why should a “non-government” institute get funding from this practically bankrupt government? Why aren’t companies or investors falling over themselves to finance this “urgently needed” institute?
The institute’s proponents are confident that locals will attend the school when it becomes available. Sure. A lot of locals have attended NMC and other U.S. colleges and universities. Yet the CNMI remains dependent on nonresident professionals and unskilled workers.
Eight years ago, the then-director of NMC’s Adult Basic Education program sounded like the child who said the emperor was daggan-naked when she pointed out the link between the low wages offered by the private sector and the lack of local interest in learning trade skills. The media reported back then that lawmakers and “education leaders have initiated steps to organize a special task force which will take the lead in preparing students acquire necessary skills that will land them competitive jobs in the future.”
Eight years ago.
No one, however, heeded the then-director’s advice to policymakers: “We have to give [students] a compelling reason to take [up vocational courses]. We have to show them that there’s a pot of gold at the end of tunnel somehow.”
In 2001, an administration official admitted that “despite the tens of millions of dollars spent on the program, the enrollment and graduation rates for local residents in vocational programs at NMC were ‘appallingly low.’ Over the last 10 years, there is no evidence that the situation has changed much.”
Of course, back then the economy wasn’t as bad as it is now. Government hiring continues, but only for the well-connected. And Guam’s construction industry beckons. But then again, if NMTI will produce students for Guam’s needs, then how does that reduce the CNMI’s dependence on foreign workers?
The CNMI’s minimum wage, though already federalized, is still way too low compared to the salaries offered by the local government. In 1997, the Hay Group report on the minimum wage, which cost CNMI taxpayers $800,000, urged the local government to “support a new industry that leads to economic diversity; increase meaningful opportunities for residents; foster savings and entrepreneurial activities among the resident population to encourage local participation in private sector economic development; and moderate government pay and benefit levels over time.” None of these proposals have been implemented. I think there’s only a handful of people in the CNMI who can recall that there was such a thing as a Hay Group report.
And so now, CNMI policymakers are again re-enacting their own version of “Field of Dreams.” If we build a trades institute, the students will come, and they will be willing to get minimum wage and perform difficult and sometimes backbreaking work instead of asking Uncle Government Official to give them better paying and cushy government jobs.
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