The Board of Industrial Training (BIT), through its National Training Programme for Youth Empowerment (NTPYE), continues to churn out skilled persons, but to ensure the programme’s continued success, more resources are needed, BIT Chairman Clinton Williams said.
Williams recently told the Government Information Agency (GINA) that resources were needed, especially with the advent of competency-based training. “The context and concept is to train to perform, and then give you the theory after. We need to get instructors that are competent enough to deliver this for us.”
The Chairman said the BIT programmes were geared to meet the future needs of local industries.
Clinton Williams
Williams pointed out that the programmes have been implemented with great success in all of the Administrative Regions except Region Eight. This Region, he said, will have a special programme to suit the skills needed in its mainly mining communities.
“Mining communities require heavy equipment operators. A programme in that Region will start with that aspect of the training, and then we will go on to other things.”
The Board Chairman dispelled the notion that vocational training was geared mainly towards those who have successfully completed a basic schooling (literacy) programme and attracts mainly males. One aspect of classes taught is the upgrading of literacy skills across the board. Williams told GINA that the ratio of females to males is 55:45 across the board for the approximately 20,000 youths trained thus far.
The training offered is also centred on equipping youths with what the job market demands. Williams noted, “What is important now is what could get you a better job, with better benefits.”
The training programme is expected to generate, according to Williams, approximately 1600 trained youths this year. This will bring the total number of skilled youths to around 22,000 since the programme began in 2006.
On July 13, 182 youths graduated from the third NTPYE at the Upper Corentyne Industrial Training Centre. The programme saw participants trained in areas of engineering, information technology, automotive repairs, management, garment construction, carpentry and other skills.
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