July 2012


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Workforce Research Centre underway

“Construction of a Centre for Workforce Research and Development (CWRD) is vital for our country’s development,” said Professor Clement Sankat, St. Augustine Campus Principal. As he welcomed guests to the sod-turning on July 10, Professor Sankat said the CWRD will focus on harmonizing, standardizing and coordinating labour market.

In a time of global recession and increasing competition, this type of research and analysis is of critical importance, he said. “If our Caribbean countries are to become more competitive, we will need to anticipate market trends as well as human capacity and workforce needs, while at the same time, addressing our systematic vulnerabilities as small-island developing states.”

The UWI and the Ministry of Tertiary Education and Skills Training (MTEST) will construct the Centre at the St. Augustine Campus where it will support labour market analysis, human resource programme planning, occupational information systems development and general research on employment and training policies and systems” said Mr. Rodney Amar, Education Projects Specialist at MTEST in his remarks.

Senator Fazal Karim, Minister of TEST gave the feature address and told listeners that this project had been one of his when he worked at The UWI. His vision was that it would be an “open door for any student to walk through and find out exactly what opportunities are available in the economy.”

The Centre was conceptualised in 2008 in the Office of Research Development and Knowledge Transfer, then called the Business Development Office, as a means of creating a regional storehouse of labour market information producing labour market surveys, tracer studies of graduates, skills gap analysis and assessments of demographic and attitudinal profiles of the workforce, particularly as they relate to the movement of skilled persons within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. Funding for construction was granted by the Ninth European Development Fund (EDF) and completion is expected by November.