“Too often people are condescending to those who are in the vocational sector,” said the Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Training (MTEST), Fazal Karim. The Minister urged people to change the way they think about the vocational sector as there needs to be less stigma attached to this field of study.
“There is a place in the sun for academia, for pre-technician and technical vocation,” he said as he addressed a graduate seminar in early April on the subject: “The vision for TVET in the context of National Workforce Development and Economic Diversification in Trinidad and Tobago.”
He encouraged the students of the Master of Arts Programme in TVET which is being offered by The UWI School of Education, to “lift the bar for TVET,” and not limit themselves. He told the students that he was interested in knowing what they were planning on doing for their dissertations because he wants to see a return on the Government’s investment, as $2.9 million has been invested in the TVET programme, which he designed. He also hopes to take the TVET programme to the PhD level. |
