Outgoing Chairperson of the Caribbean Association of National Training Agencies (CANTA), Elphege Joseph, has paid tribute to the ‘trail blazers’ of the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and said she is now satisfied with progress made thus far.
“I’m extremely happy and proud of the developments that have taken place,” she said and noted that TVET is not at the end of the road but has certainly come a long way.
Joseph made the remarks at a cocktail reception to officially open the CANTA/C-EFE meeting in Dominica held at the Fort Young Hotel on Thursday night.
She said she recalled having arrived at a CANTA meeting six years ago in Jamaica and being really surprised at the fact that there were just three countries represented.
She stated that when the word TVET(Technical Vocational and Educational and Training) was mentioned, it gave the sense that it was a poor second cousin to traditional academia.
“There was this stigma attached to skills development … it was where those who were either dysfunctional, or who could not find themselves in any occupational area or field, so this is where they sought to go,” she said.
She said CANTA played a critical role in transforming minds on the role of TVET and its contribution to the workforce.
“There was a lot of resistance and perhaps doubt in a lot of people’s minds as to whether or not the strategy was in fact the correct one. And I mention this because I wanted to pay tribute to those who went before me, Robert Gregory, Trevor King, who really labored to position TVET where it ought to,” She stated.
Joseph noted that the idea of vocational training has gone a long way. “So that some 20 years ago when the regional TVET strategy was introduced, here we are now, where we have revisited the regional TVET strategy, we have held national and regional consultations, we have spoken to students, we have spoken to instructors, we have spoken to industries, we have revisited our strategy and now we have aligned TVET as we ought to have from the inception, as a regional TVET strategy for workforce development and economic competitiveness,” she pointed out.
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