MINISTER of Labour Joseph Hamilton has said that the allocation in Budget 2024 will allow him to do much more at the ministry, including rolling out training programmes to upskill staff.

While no specific amount was shared, the minister in a recent interview noted that the allocation for his ministry is more than it was last year. He said that money for training and other initiatives has increased.

According to Minister Hamilton, some of the plans will be rolled out through the ministry’s training arm, the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) and some attention will be given to the upskilling of staff.

He said: “For me, many of the new ideas and thoughts on modernising thinking is that you have to have officers who have the capacity to deliver what we’re talking about. And so, important to me and the ministry, is ensuring the people who work in the different departments are adequately trained.”

He signalled his desire to have the BIT curriculum redefined to allow for innovation to be a part of the training that will be offered.

“I don’t think anymore that we can train people… to just go and work. I think we now have to move to a place where everything they do, the innovation is a part of it,” Minister Hamilton said.
This, according to him, is to ensure that they can make the delivery of services more efficient and effective.

Minister Hamilton added: “We have to also, as a training arm, look out for how the labour force is shifting… Even at the level of education delivery, we have to pay attention to some of the professions…Streaming in schools needs to be different. It has to be different, it has to be, whereby you pay attention to the emerging sectors. The emerging types of jobs, so that we don’t over train in areas where people will not get jobs,” he said.

Additionally, it was disclosed that information technology will play a major role in training for 2024.

The minister said that they will mostly create concepts that will fuse information technology with the different training programmes.

He pointed out that programmes must speak to efficiency, and how they can take it to their new place of business or work environments.

Minister Hamilton emphasised that this needs to be done to ensure there is rapid production.

“We cannot continue to do it the old way. The young man or woman today who embraces welding and fabrication, they must see it as starting a journey to participate in the oil and gas sector where that skill set is needed,” he explained.

He noted that they have begun conversations with companies to set aside a place for apprentices, so that young Guyanese can be exposed to that industry.

He remarked: “No more can you dangle your certification before people. There are several other things you have to pay attention to, to make yourself employable.”