The Labour Ministry will be establishing a technical and vocational training centre in Port Kaituma, Region One (Barima-Waini). This was revealed by subject minister, Joseph Hamilton on Tuesday, during an engagement with the Matarkai Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) at the Port Kaituma community centre.
NDC Chairman, Orlando Thorne, Deputy Regional Executive Officer (REO), Matarkai Labour Officer, Clement Adams, newly appointed Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Officer, Chavez Daniels, and Board of Industrial Training (BIT) Officer, Region One, Trevi Leung attended the meeting.
Minister Hamilton said an area has already been identified in Port Kaituma to establish the training centre, which will also house the ministry’s sub-region office. Currently, a number of training programmes are being rolled throughout the sub-region in keeping with the government’s vision of empowering citizens at the community level to make meaningful contributions to society.
The programmes are being administered by the Board of Industrial Training (BIT) which is mandated by the Industrial Training Act to provide apprenticeship training to citizens.
Minister Hamilton said BIT plans to train some 3,000 persons and the hinterland communities will not be left out. To this end, he said the ministry has recruited a BIT officer who will be responsible for spearheading programmes in the Matarkai and Mabaruma sub-districts.
“These programmes are there and we want communities to make full use of them. Get the people together form groups and we will train the people based on their needs, because we don’t impose programmes on communities,” Minister Hamilton told the NDC.
BIT currently conducts training in more than 150 skilled areas in keeping with the technical workforce needs of the country. Over the past year, the agency expanded its programmes to cater to new industries.
