Tech education on workbench: new training facilities, options ‘coming’

Barbados is set for a fundamental overhaul of its tertiary education system, with government rolling out sweeping reforms to prioritise technical and vocational training, aiming to better prepare young people for employment in both local and international markets.

Minister of Training and Tertiary Education Sandra Husbands told reporters the reforms are designed to respond to the rapidly changing demands of the industry.

“What we’ve come to understand is that over the past few years, the digital revolution has completely transformed industry,” Husbands said on the sidelines of a ceremony at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology (SJPI).

“What this means is that we have to bring forth a new generation of technicians for our country and technicians who can go and work any part of the world. So whether you’re talking about construction or the automobile engineering area, whatever you’re talking about, there have been innovations and developments.”

Curricula, programmes ‘to change’ Husbands explained that the reforms would require a complete overhaul of curricula across the nation’s institutions: “This is something that the principal [of SJPI] and the other principals are currently working on. We just returned from Botswana where we were looking at the community of learning and looking at how we can change the way we do school in a way that meets the needs of today’s young people”.

The new system would move away from traditional three-year programmes that offer no immediate earning opportunities, she added.

“Today’s young people don’t want to come and sit somewhere for three years not earning anything to get a degree,” the education minister declared. “What they want is to be able to have training on demand. They want micro-prediction where you can come and do modules and pass those modules and you can do it at will over your entire lifetime if you want to. When you’ve completed the full complement, that is your degree, that is your diploma.”

Assessment and competency The minister outlined a shift from examination-based assessment to competency-based evaluations.

“We are looking at innovation in the TechVoc space and how we train and we want to switch from the issue of exams and switch now to assessments. That means when the students in the automotive area are fixing a vehicle, we have a camera on them where we can see what they’re doing and they can explain to you how they’re approaching it and that way you can assess if they have been able to acquire competence in repairing a vehicle.”

20 000 target Husbands said the reforms target the estimated 20 000 or more young people who have left school over the past ten to fifteen years with only one or two certificates.

“That’s not enough to build a life,” she said. “So we want to re-engage them, bring them into a revised and renewed space, an energetic space, an innovative space that they can become excited about. You’ve heard the principal that the students now are saying they’re excited about school. That’s because of the change in approach that is being introduced and we plan to do this across all of our tertiary institutions.”

She emphasised the goal of producing globally certified graduates ready for the workforce: “That means that our young people will be ready for any job in the world because they are going to be globally certified. That is our promise and commitment to the young people of this country.”

The reform plan comes amid concerns over employment opportunities for graduates, with hundreds leaving the University of the West Indies in recent years expressing anxiety over their inability to secure jobs.

SJPI expansion SJPI principal Ian Drakes said the institute is embracing modernisation and expansion to meet industry needs. “We have been given approval by the Town and Planning Department to build a new state-of-the-art welding workshop,” he said.

“The prime minister is seeking that funding in terms of financing and we are going to be having that wonderful two-storey for our students and by extension other sister partners like the Barbados Vocational Training Board. We are working collaboratively to have that within the next year to train at least 32 to 64 students annually to meet the demand of welding in this country and beyond.”

The preliminary cost of the facility is $9 million and it will be built on the SJPI field near the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation in the Pine.

Husbands noted that the demand for skilled welders in the region is high. “We have learned that in Guyana, in that oil industry the demand for the welding is so high that welders are earning three thousand dollars a day, and that is why SJPI has undertaken this very important project of building that welding plant”.