The Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, announced a few days ago the creation of the Ministry of Tertiary and Technical Education. This new office, together with the Ministries of National Security, Legal Affairs and Information, will also be under his direction.
In that small nation that is part of ALBA, Petrocaribe, CARICOM and CELAC, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (a former colony of the United Kingdom) and comprising a main island, Saint Vincent, and a chain of smaller islands, with a population of more than 110,000 inhabitants in an area of 384 square kilometres, they seem to be somewhat clearer than in other countries in the region. Its government has decided to place greater emphasis on technical and vocational education.
Gonsalves has highlighted the need to give a big boost to technical/vocational education “to provide the workforce for the paradigm shift in the economy”. He has pointed out that with a real boom in the construction industry that his country is experiencing, there is a shortage of skilled workers. And with a shortage of such labour, contractors have been requesting permission to bring in skilled carpenters, skilled masons, skilled plumbers, etc. to the island.
This news coming from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a clear and recent example of the crossroads, the dilemma, in which education currently finds itself, as a result of the acceleration of technological developments, the consequences of the pandemic, of the environmental crisis and even the tensions and changes in the world geopolitical order.
Where the educational processes should be heading? Should we continue with the classic schemes that aim to award diplomas even when the recipient has no practical experience whatsoever? Is it not logical that each student should acquire, throughout their school career, tools that will enable them to go out into the world of work, even before finishing their studies?
In Venezuela, the need has arisen to shape a system of Technical and Vocational Education and Training that responds to the existing needs of the national productive apparatus and to those that arise almost daily as a result of the speed with which technological advances is progressing. This proposal, which has been advocated by the Institute for Socialist Training and Education (INCES), requires a permanent interrelation and communication with the private and public productive sectors, universities, trade unions and student sectors. So far, it has been well received – discursively – by almost all actors in the political and institutional world. However, it is now time for action.
