A RECENT batch of trainees from the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) are now certified in Electrical Installation, Information Technology and Commercial Food Preparation. The graduates were celebrated on Friday, after completing four months of training at the Buxton Practical Institution Centre (PIC), facilitated by BIT, and held at the Tipperary Hall located at Buxton on the East Coast of Demerara.

Persons known to the graduates (families, friends and village acquaintances) along with officials of BIT and the Ministry of Labour showered the graduates with words of encouragement after climbing further up the skills ladder.

This batch, which comprised 38 graduates, 25 females and 13 males, were trained at the facility, which attracted beneficiaries from Victoria, Belle Vue and Beterverwagting, to better their lives and respective communities.
Attending the ceremony were Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Richard Maughn, Technical Officer with responsibilities for the East Coast, Quinola Legall, Monitoring and Evaluation Officers, Nateica Garraway and Marcel David-Watson, trainers and other officials of BIT.

Minister Hamilton in his feature address, implored the graduates to properly utilise the skills received funded by the Government of Guyana and BIT.
The minister stated, “We have trained you, now it’s time to promote yourselves, it is your duty and responsibility for people to know you exist and possess the skill. Do not sell yourselves short and more importantly, we have trained in region four, 3,561 persons, representing 42 per cent of the total training from 2015-2019.”

It was further noted by the minister that a remarkable achievement is that women are now entering ‘hard’ skill fields that they were excluded from years ago.

“The Board of Industrial Training do not train by gender, we train people, so any programme, any gender can participate, and we are proud women are thinking out of the box as welders, heavy-duty operators, and so on. Women are doing better for themselves,” the minister highlighted.

With the recent graduation, a total of 12,472 individuals have participated in various Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) programmes, with 7,582 females and 4,890 males.