The Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) is partnering with the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) and the Labour Ministry’s National Training Programme for Youth Empowerment (NTPYE) to create a wider range of skill sets for the forestry sector.
In a press release, BIT Chairman Clinton Williams said over the years the Board has successfully provided vocational training and education to a large number of youths nationwide, equipping them with marketable skills in various occupations.
BIT was established more than 40 years ago under the Industrial Training Act to provide training opportunities for youths and to equip them with marketable skills. Simultaneously the GFC, in keeping with its commitments laid out in the National Forest Plan, has added this programme to the curriculum of the Forestry Training Centre Inc (FTCI), which already offers vocational training.
This development is a direct response to the dearth of skills in the forestry sector. Principally, the objective is to equip about 300 youths with highly marketable skills that could guarantee their immediate employment within the forestry sector. It is also anticipated to reduce the reported high levels of unemployment across the nation.
The occupational training programme is diverse and includes courses in tree identification, pre-harvest forest inventory, directional felling, heavy-duty machine and equipment (bulldozer and skidder) operation, wood processing, saw-doctoring and timber grading. In keeping with national priorities, the course will also include segments on critical life skills such as combating HIV and AIDS and gender-based violence.
A major portion of the training will be conducted at the FTCI field-based training facility located on the right bank of the Mariwa River, left bank Cuyuni River. BIT will also add this new curriculum to the training schedules at all of their facilities which have traditionally been used for vocational training and community development.
To date the programme has gotten a positive response from youth across the regions. Interviews of applicants have begun and the programme for the first batch of trainees is set to start next month.
Applications will be invited shortly for the second round of training courses due to start later this year.
