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Week Ending August 3, 2007

H.R.176 To authorize assistance to the countries of the Caribbean to fund educational development and exchange programs.

The bill establishes, through the Secretary of State, an educational exchange program for secondary, undergraduate and graduate students in the Caribbean and the US. The program aims to promote a better understanding of US values and culture. The bill also would expand existing primary and secondary school development in the Caribbean through teacher training and better community involvement.

The program will be named after former congresswoman and Caribbean-American Shirley Chisholm.

Scholarships will be based on merit and need, will seek to achieve gender equality, and will be limited to two years for secondary students, four years for undergraduates, 30  months for graduate students and 1 year for post graduate students. Student may attend public or private schools in the US and may live with a host family.

The students must agree to return to their country or a CARICOM country in the region within 6 months of completion and must agree to be employed in a way that directly benefits growth, progress and development in the country.

To develop education in CARICOM countries any programs will provide teacher training, classroom and school management, development of curriculum, community development and local, regional and national planning for education.

The  programs will be assed regularly for progress and financial soundness.

The countries that will participate are Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

Sponsor:  Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-9th)

Vote: passed House 371 to 55 RC 771 July 31, 2007

Cost to the taxpayers: CBO estimates that implementing this provision would require funding of $15 million a year, and would cost $2 million in 2008 and $48 million over the 2008-2012 period:  

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MORE INFORMATION

(a) Findings- Congress finds the following:

(1) The United States and CARICOM countries have enjoyed long-standing friendly relations.

(2) As an important regional partner for trade and democratic values, the Caribbean region constitutes a `Third Border' of the United States.

(3) The decrease in tourism revenue in the aftermath of the tragic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, had an adverse affect on the Caribbean region.

(4) According to a 2005 World Bank Report on the Caribbean region, high rates of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, have had severe implications on poverty and income distributions, as well as drug trafficking and addiction.

(5) The 2005 World Bank Report also concludes that better synchronization is needed between curricula in CARICOM countries and the skills needed in evolving national and regional job markets and economies.

(6) Caribbean leaders have highlighted the need for increased educational opportunities for Caribbean students in fields that will contribute to and support an increasingly competitive regional economy.

(7) Enhancing United States cultural and educational exchange programs in CARICOM countries will expand human resources, provide opportunities that promote economic growth, and improve regional security.

(8) Many Caribbean leaders studied at the undergraduate or graduate level in the United States before returning to their respective countries to contribute toward the strengthening of democracy, the economy, or the provision of social services.

(9) From 2003 through 2005, 217 Caribbean leaders participated in exchange programs with the United States that focused on good governance, combating drug trafficking, anti-corruption, and other regional issues of concern.

(10) The Department of State currently administers public outreach programs that include cultural, academic, and citizen-exchange initiatives in CARICOM countries through the Embassy Public Affairs Sections with support from the Office of Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

(11) The Caribbean Center for Excellence in Teacher Training (C-CETT), a Presidential Initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development and implemented by the University of the West Indies, works to improve the quality of reading instruction by training classroom and student teachers in seven countries of the English-speaking Caribbean. Belize, Jamaica, Grenada, St. Lucia, Guyana, St.Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago have participated in the C-CETT as a means to reducing illiteracy in the most disadvantaged urban and remote rural areas.

(12) In Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State sponsors educational advisors to promote study in the United States.

(13) In the 2004-2005 academic year, approximately 14,000 Caribbean students were enrolled in United States colleges and universities.

(14) Shirley Anita Chisholm, who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1968 to 1983, had family roots in the Caribbean nation of Barbados, was a staunch advocate for educational opportunity and access, and increased support for historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions in the United States.

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