Jamaica is facing a growing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education crisis as only 6,000 of the 30,000 students sitting Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations annually are achieving the qualifications needed to enter the country’s tertiary institutions.

Dr Kevin Brown, president of The University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), said the limited number of students is creating intense recruitment competition among Jamaica’s universities and teachers’ colleges.

“We have a little crisis emerging,” said Brown, while addressing the launch of UTech’s third annual Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Summer Camp at the institution’s Western Campus last Wednesday. “We have a situation where 30,000 high schoolers take CSEC. Thirty thousand sounds like a big number; it is a big number, but only 6,000 get five passes with maths and English included.”