Dominica continues preparation to award Caribbean Vocational Qualifications
As the region continues to work towards integration, Dominica has become a priority for assistance. Areas being targeted are the free movement of skills; goods, capital; services and the right to establishment.
In late June experts from the CARICOM Secretariat and various stakeholders met to officially launch the CARICOM Trade and Competitiveness Project which aims to simplify CARICOM Single Market and Economy procedures like acquiring CARICOM skills certificates.
In light of this a consultancy meeting was held last Friday at the conference room of the Windsor Park Sports Stadium. Two CARICOM contracted consultants, Dr. Paulette Dunn-Pierre and Clover Barnett of Jamaica, met with officials from the Ministry of Education.
Hon. Petter St. Jean, Minister for Education, believes that in order for Dominica and the region to progress economically, human resource must be well equipped. He said “There is need for retooling of our workforce in order for us to maintain a competitive edge and this basically is the reason for all that is happening here today.”
Consultant Dr. Paulette Dunn-Pierre revealed that the aim of the meeting was to define Dominica’s position in order to help build capacity to certify its skilled workers.
She confirmed, “The aim is to assure and to ensure that Dominica can award the Caribbean Vocational Qualification.”
She further indicated that in the case of Dominica “we want to see how far advanced the TVET Council is and we want to look at training assessors and verifiers.”
The process to achieve a legislative system for certifying skilled workers has already been completed in a few other regional countries. This consultancy meeting in Dominica is the first stage before proceeding to train and qualify the recently formed Technical and Vocational Education and Training Council.
“We are here to ensure that Dominica is on par with the rest of the region. We don’t want to leave anybody behind,” Dr. Dunn-Pierre stated.
Nine countries including states of the OECS, Belize and Suriname are part of the project. Three countries have already been granted the status of awarding certificates. They are Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. “Recently Grenada and St. Lucia came on board. So they also have their instruments to award the CVQ,” Dr. Dunn-Pierre confirmed.
“We are hoping that by the time this project is finished we would have strengthened the capacity and tuned up and upgraded the TVET Council and the Ministry of Education so that Dominica can also award the CVQ,” she stated.
According to Hon Petter Saint Jean, the success of this project is dependent on all business sectors in society. He said the role of the Ministry of Education is to create an environment to achieve this success.
The project is expected to be completed within one year.