| In recognition of the fact that Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is an imperative, moves have been made to have persons adequately trained to properly deliver and assess such programmes.In fact according to Director for the Council of TVET, Mr Sydney Walters, a total of 268 persons have been trained in the methodology that is employed in the delivery of a competency based modularised curriculum and 150 persons have been trained as assessors.This, according to the TVET Director, is in keeping with the TVET Act of July 2004 which clearly defines not only the functions, but how competency based modularised training is to be dealt with. Moreover,Cheap Jerseys 2018, the Act states that “to develop a national system of competency based modularised training and to initiate its implementation,” is a major role of the Council for TVET.According to Walters, one of the major requirements for recognition and therefore the award of the Caribbean Vocational Qualifications (CVQs) is that all the occupational programmes that are being offered be competency based.And according to the TVET Director this is also true for the National Vocational Qualification programme.As such he insisted that it is important for all stakeholders to be aware that concomitant with the implementation of competency based modularised training, the lecturers and instructors of the various occupational programmes must be trained to deliver such.“They must also be trained in the assessment of students or trainees’ performances as well as the documentation of such performances,” said Walters, who was at the time speaking at the start of a TVET workshop at the National Centre for Education Resource Development (NCERD) yesterday.The nine-day workshop designed to train assessors is being done as a deliberate strategy to ensure that TVET has an adequate number of evaluators at a national level. And according to Walters, each participant will be actively involved in various sessions, during the course of the workshop, which will include group work and role play as part of the programme delivery activities.Also speaking at the start of the workshop yesterday was UNESCO’s Secretary General, Ms Inge Nathoo, who noted that globalisation, technological advances, demographic pressures, social inequalities and the quest for sustainable development are in fact creating rising demands for TVET policies and programmes. Once in place these will respond to labour market demands, support youth transition between education and the world of work thereby promoting poverty reduction, social inclusion and gender equality, Nathoo disclosed. As such she noted that “this calls for holistic transformation of TVET based on policy, evidence and experience with a focus on lifelong learning through horizontal and vertical articulation with an education, and between education and the world of work.”In this regard she spoke of the need for the Council to seek to lobby with partners in the private sector, Non-Governmental Organisations, and donor agencies.In this regard Nathoo said that UNESCO’s strategy for TVET integrates policy experiences, monitoring and evaluation, research, international dialogue and partnership. As such she noted that this integrated approach will be further enhanced based on the conclusions of the mid-term review of the strategy for TVET.This, she noted, will include the recommendations of the third International Congress on TVET known as the Shanghai Consensus and guided by the findings of the 2012 Education for All (EFA) global monitoring report. |
