Education ministry to launch national standardisation and certification project

The Ministry of Education is moving to implement a project that will build capacity among local creatives and service providers, with the aim of making these professionals more marketable regionally and internationally.

The project, National Standardisation and Certification of Exportable Service Providers is one of two projects that gained approval from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) under the EPA and CSME Standby Facility funded by the European Union and is one of two projects that will be implemented by local ministries with funding totalling €250,840.

Minister of education, Curtis King expressed appreciation on behalf of the government for the support being given from the CDB and the European Union (EU) to implement the project.

“St Vincent and the Grenadines has a wealth of talent within the performing arts. However, there are minimal training, personal development opportunities, standards and certification frameworks for our many artistes and practitioners in this field of employment,” King said at the launch this week.

“In fact, the majority of our artistes, musicians, are self taught. Very few have developed their skills and accessed university level certification. This situation and the increasing demand for professionalism and qualification have resulted in industry participants being unable to access the level of economic value that is available within the various markets.”

Under the National Standardisation and Certification of Exportable Service Providers project, efforts will be made to develop the spa sector, while preparing and positioning it for “greater exportability both at the regional and international level”.

King said this will be done in a number of ways geared at creating a national standardisation of spa services across this country, and the enhancement of both the technical and service skills through training and certification.

The project will also seek to develop a cadre of certified musical professionals and enhance the capacity of other CSME approved vocations such as security guards and domestics to access markets outside of SVG.

Director of projects at the CDB, Daniel Best noted that it is no small task “to rebound and rebalance a small open economy which has been affected by multiple shocks; a health crisis and a volcanic eruption”.

Best said the Bank, through these two projects, is assisting with national recovery in an effort to support sustainable development.

And he believes education to be a critical table of social and economic development.

“…By educating our citizens, we can create an ever expanding pool of productive Caribbean citizens with the requisite knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to lead purposeful and productive lives in an internationally competitive environment,” the director of projects said.

Speaking specifically about the project that will be implemented under the Ministry of Education, Best added that the National Standardisation and Certification of Exportable Service Providers project will assist the government of SVG in addressing one of the main development challenges in education.

This will be done through the enhancement of the quality and relevance of education to better align with existing demand for skills and improved employability and employment levels.

Other key stakeholders also delivered remarks at Tuesday’s event.

They include the deputy programme manager for the Development Co-operation CARIFORUM Directorate CARICOM Secretariat, Yvonne Baron-George; and team leader at the Regional Co-operation and Trade EU Delegation to Barbados and the OECS Felipe de la Mota.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Nerissa Gittens-McMillan, also delivered an address on Tuesday on behalf of agriculture minister, Saboto Caesar.