Next Year, more courses, more staff, new location for TVET says Minister Taylor 

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, November 25, 2022 – TVET offerings in the Turks and Caicos will definitely increase, especially for incarcerated people according to Minister of Education Rachel Taylor.  Taylor was responding to queries from a resident about the limited course offerings in a Town Hall meeting on Monday November 21st.

“By next year you will see more programs being offered, not just at the prison, but also at the community college.” she said.

Mentioning that the Turks and Caicos Community College already offered courses like Commercial Food Preparation, Customer services as well as Electrical Engineering, but not some others like masonry, she said that the one thing they were working on was synchronizing courses between high schools and higher education.

“We will have to align the courses that are offered in high school also in the community college.  Persons may not be aware but the Caribbean Vocational Qualification is actually level one of TVET, so when our students finish with the carpentry and the masonry and data entry, they can move into level two at the community college.”

In order to make that happen there are several things the government must do, she explained.

“Currently, we have to get onboard additional manpower at the community college [that] has already been budgeted.”  She said that interviews were already taking place for adult learning assessment officers and a larger space at Alliance Business Plaza had been procured.

“We have recently purchased Club Pillows, which will be our new Turks and Caicos Islands Community College, which will provide us a better outlet to introduce additional courses.”

Referencing the new program geared towards inmates, she said, “The first phase of the MOU is the introduction of the Commercial Food Preparation and Customer services so we will definitely increase the offerings.  We will have that dialogue with the inmates in terms of the — kind of training they would want to receive.”

Increased TVET offerings had been one of the major requests from young people during a recent youth survey.  The Bahamas Technical Vocational Institute has also been flown into the TCI to consult and help broaden the offerings provided in the technical, vocational programme.