–Minister Hamilton says

MORE than 12,000 individuals have been trained in one way or the other through the Ministry of Labour’s Board of Industrial Training (BIT) over the last four years.

Unlike the technical training offered by the Ministry of Education (MoE), where students will have to enroll in a technical institution through the MoE, BIT conducts community-based trainings with partners in the public and private sector.

Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton, in a recent video interview, related that they look to these partners to recommend and make requests for the type of training they believe might be useful in their communities.

Apart from this, they allow these partners to propose names of trainers with the competencies and the qualifications in the community, so that these persons can be paid, and money is circulated within the community.

During the interview, Minister Hamilton opined that something that needs to be understood when discussing Guyana’s labour market and the supplying of that labour market, is the long-term effects of it.

He remarked that in the long-term, we need to revolutionise and transform the delivery of education in our country, while also making Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) as prominent as academic education.

He explained: “In my view, children, we have to start streaming them from primary school, so as to develop their aptitude. And what we do too much, is trying to make them what they don’t want to be. And so, that’s a long-term programme, and also to stream and encourage children to pay attention to the new professions in the labour market.”

The minister went on to say that it is his view that there are many persons who are attending university and are graduating to go into professions that are going “out of style”, or not as prominent as they were before. For this reason, the minister underscored the dire need for more training and education to be facilitated to open the eyes of the youths, so they can see that more opportunities are available to them now in terms of career choices and training.
According to the minister, in the labour market, “we have to develop skill sets; give people skills that don’t have a skill, and that’s what BIT has been doing,” he said.

It was highlighted by Minister Hamilton that some 12,472 individuals have been trained thus far through the Board of Industrial Training, with more training sessions being conducted across Guyana.

Minister Hamilton pointed out that approximately $1.2 billion has been expended over the past four years to train Guyanese under BIT.

Furthermore, he reiterated that all BIT programmes are free of cost, and are offered to all Guyanese.

From this year, the minister revealed that there is a plan in place to undertake a project at their facility in Unity, Mahaica. The intent is to ensure that all their skilled tradesmen in Guyana are trained comprehensively to ensure they can be certified and accredited. (Faith Greene)