Small, Intelligent and Connected: The Future Face of the Mauritian Workforce

Small island states like Mauritius have little to bank on except their human capital. In fact, the opportunities that ensue depend on the manner in which this human capital is steered and fashioned.

In the years following independence, Mauritius succeeded in moving away from an economy essentially based on sugar to one where garments and textile played a key role. Concurrently, the island started to develop a reputation as a tourist paradise spot. There is no doubt that this developmental path was ‘valid’ until the mid 1980s but did not do much in building a stock of high skilled human capital. In fact, Mauritius gained a ‘comparative advantage’ through its relatively cheap labour and its host of preferential trade agreements. This strategy is no more relevant today and the country’s attempt of moving towards an information industry (financial / offshore sector and ICT) is a case in point.

However, the country is facing several challenges in attaining the status of a knowledge hub and one of its most tangible limitations is its human resource. In fact, despite post independent Mauritius being marked by a history of free education (pre primary up to tertiary) the country has a relatively small stock of high value scaled workers. Education on the island has been overtly skewered with a tertiary enrolment ratio of 11 percent (UNESCO, 2004) despite the proactive moves to enroll and train more people at the high- end level.

The aim of the paper is to map out the necessary mechanisms required to transform the Mauritian human capital into a creative, autonomous and skilled workforce. The driver behind this is the judicious access and application of technology. The paper will also provide a critical appraisal of the current Information Communication and Technology (ICT) framework and outline some of its major flaws and explain why an integrated, holistic and bottom-up approach is fundamental to the adoption and diffusion of technology.

There is no doubt that the building of a technological based population will take time but if one really intends to bring about a transformative and permanent change the right strategies and mechanisms must be put into place.