The Ministry of Education (MoE) yesterday handed over safety equipment to the Technical and Voca-tional Education and Training departments of ten secondary schools.
According to a MoE press release, the safety equipment was handed over by Deputy Chief Edu-cation Officer (Technical), Ritesh Tularam, in the boardroom of the ministry’s Brickdam office. The items received were helmets, safety vests, safety goggles and safety gloves.
Receiving over 40 items each on Thursday were Bygeval Secondary School, Hope Secondary School, Bladen Hall Secondary School, Fellow-ship Practical Instruction Centre, Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary School, Annan-dale Secondary School, Richard Ishmael Secon-dary School, New Amster-dam Secondary School, Canje Secondary School, and the Dolphin Secondary School. These are all secondary schools that offer TVET programmes.
Present at the handing-over ceremony was Chief Education Officer, Saddam Hussain who stated that Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) must take its rightful place in the education system. To do this, he added, schools must be given the tools to ensure that their students are protected and can work in a safe environment. Hussain posited that at this juncture of the country’s developmental agenda, TVET can take the education system to the next level. He then disclosed that for the remainder of 2023, more emphasis will be placed by MoE on promoting and increasing access to TVET education.
He noted that Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, also recognises the importance of TVET education, and that she is aiming to have each secondary school child graduate from school with five main things. “We want them to leave with a foreign language, the ability to play at least one sport, the ability to play a musical instrument, a TVET subject and to leave with a spirit of volunteerism.”
According to the Chief Education Officer, all secondary schools offer TVET subjects from grades seven to nine, but he noted that the number of students writing subjects at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) level has to increase in addition to the number of students pursuing the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) and the Secondary Competency Certificate Programme (SCCP).
