Basseterre, St. Kitts, July 11, 2013 (SKNIS): The St. Kitts Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council in collaboration with its sister agency in Barbados have recently embarked on a weeklong Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) Master Training Workshop that will strengthen the capacity of trained assessors to become Master Trainers.
Paul Puckerin, Senior Technical Officer of TVET Council Barbados and Facilitator of the workshop which started on Monday (July 08), explained that once the participants from St. Kitts and Nevis become Master Trainers they will not have to rely on external officials to do the training for them.
“[St. Kitts and Nevis] has a group of persons who were trained as assessors back in 2007 and this week they’re undergoing how to become Master Trainers so as to build capacity for future training in the country.”
Mr. Puckerin also explained why the expansion of the CVQ is important not only to St. Kitts and Nevis but also across the Caribbean region.
“The CVQs in St. Kitts and the region is a vital element because it provides opportunity for students to demonstrate their competence,” he noted. “It allows for students to show that they can work at a particular level to enter the world of work. It also provides opportunities for sharing across the Caribbean because we share best practices. So, what Barbados has been learning will be shared with St. Kitts and vice versa, so that once the programmes become up and running throughout the whole region, we will know that they are certified and competent to function in their skilled areas.”
Orette Smith, Coordinator for TVET in Nevis and participant shared how the Federation will benefit from the workshop.
“I would say that the workshop is very good because it’s preparing us so that we in turn will be able to provide training to future assessors which will actually improve capacity in St. Kitts and Nevis,” Mr Smith explained. “…This training is gearing us to the implementation in some schools and for other schools it would be a matter of reinforcing the CVQ programme which in my mind is a very good programme because it is a programme that is actually in operation right around the Caribbean region. We should be able to administer this programme.”
Topics being covered in the workshop include the creation of questions, how to plan assessments and how to execute that assessment.
In September, St. Kitts will be running a second assessor training workshop for new persons who want to become qualified within the school system.