A $186 million contract for the expansion and rehabilitation of the Beterverwagting Practical Instruction Centre (PIC), and a $1.5 million contract for the rehabilitation of the Hopetown PIC were signed on Friday at the Ministry of Education’s Brickdam Office. The contract for the BV facility was awarded to KALLCO Guyana Inc., while Hopetown’s was awarded to M&P Investment Guyana Inc., MTSUL Construcoes LTDA, and Construtora Cobra Eireli. The consultancy firm for both projects is VIKAB Engineering Consultants Limited, in association with VIKAB (Guyana) Limited and Jain Consultants. The works for both projects are scheduled to take 12 months.
The two projects fall under the Guyana Skills Development and Employability Project (GSDEP), which is aimed at improving Guyana’s capacity to deliver TVET programmes equitably across the education sector. The projects will improve the TVET options offered to students in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) and Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica).
The entire project is being funded through a partnership between Guyana and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

Chief Education Officer (CEO), Dr. Marcel Hutson noted that the signing of the contracts speaks to the ministry’s commitment to increase focus on and investment in TVET.
“Part of our strategic plan has to do with Technical Vocational Education and Training because we see how important this education is in terms of developing our nation and how important it is to offering an alternative pathway to our students in the school system,” Dr. Hutson noted.
When completed, each school will have five occupational areas, and offer Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQ) Level One certification.
Each facility will benefit from improved practical instruction departments to offer CVQ Level One training in Commercial Food Preparation, Masonry/Plumbing, Electrical Installation, Graphic Design and Home Economics/Housekeeping. Hutson urged the contractors to be mindful of the significance of the projects they are about to embark on, and to work within the timeline for the completion of the projects.

Also making remarks at the signing was Deputy Chief Education Officer (Technical), Patrick Onwuzirike, who also urged the contractors to be mindful of the deadlines.
According to Onwuzirike, the ministry has a strategic objective to offer every secondary school student options in TVET so that they can to leave the education system with a skilled certificate.
MoE Permanent Secretary, Alfred King, reminded the contractors of the government’s zero-tolerance for delinquent contractors, and emphasised the importance of timely delivery as key to quality control. “We have been experiencing very often contractors who would win these contracts fairly but then trying to get the implementation going is always a problem,” King noted.
GSDEP Project Coordinator, Theron Siebs, in brief remarks called on the contractors to keep within specifications as this will be imperative in the facilitates’ fulfilling the requirement of the Caribbean Association of National Training Authorities (CANTA) which is the arm of CARICOM responsible for coordinating TVET in member states.