The Transition From Secondary School To Work : An Empirical Investigation For St.Vincent

This paper analyses the transition from secondary school to work in St. Vincent, using data from a purposely collected survey which was fielded in early 2006. The sample consisted of 400 randomly chosen secondary school graduates from the 2002 cohort. This paper documents transition to the labor market (Post secondary occupation, job search strategies, sectors of employment), skills (IT skills, awareness of skills needed, communication with employers about skills), on-the-job training practices, and the correlation between CXC qualifications and labor market outcomes. This paper attempts to answer the following questions: a) What are the typical paths of transition between secondary school and the labor market? b) What is the skills mix among recent graduates from secondary school? And c) What is the correlation between the education of graduates and their training (in particular their outcomes on the CSEC exam) and labor market outcomes?