THE number of graduates being churned out from the Board of Industrial Training’s (BIT) National Training Project for Youth Empowerment ((NTPYE) and Single Parents’ programmes across the country continues to increase each year.And probably the single most important indicator of this fact is the increased capacity of Guyana’s workforce to respond to the developmental needs of Guyana – both of which are being advanced simultaneously.

There is no doubt that the existence of an unskilled workforce and inadequate and insufficient infrastructure are the two challenges that plague national development.
In this era of scientific and technological revolution, education and training are becoming the main motivating forces for the acceleration of development and are considered determininistic factors for the success or failure of a nation.
Currently, the economy is heavily dependent upon the export of six main commodities – sugar, gold, bauxite, shrimp, timber, and rice – which represent nearly 60 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, increased capacity, both in terms of improved entrepreneurial skills and specialisation in non-traditional, productive sectors, is essential to seeing new areas taking their places as major contributors to the economy.
Such training not only supports Guyana’s economic advancement, but bodes well on the social front, especially since it fights against poverty.
Manpower coupled with good knowledge is the most important resource of modern industry; and to improve the quality of human resources is the main condition for economic growth and social development.
There is no doubt that capacity-building efforts that help produce a critical mass of leaders and in the case of the current administration, such an effort is a hallmark.
The big picture, here, is the fact that for developing countries to effectively and speedily respond to the current global economic challenges, climate change and other crises that are plaguing the world, development of capacity must be a feature in a country’s strategic development plans.
There is no other option than to equate the pace of socio-economic development, with strategies for national education and training development.
However, while there are gains to be secured from equating moves in development to those in education, in other words, capacity building of the workforce, there is one more consideration – the brain drain.
The brain drain plague is a fact Guyana knows all too well and significant and long-term investments will be required to rectify the ‘push’ factors that drive individuals from sections of the workforce and discourage professionals from serving the public good.
Nonetheless, the moves made to date to build the capacity of the local workforce cannot remain unrecognised.