RETHINKING POSTSECONDARY, TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

摘要

For years, governments, administrators and policy makers emphasise theneed to provide postsecondary youth who possess little or no educational qualifications,opportunities to gain marketable skills and occupational competencies.Skills development factors heavily into many country’s poverty reduction anddevelopment thrusts. In Trinidad and Tobago, a number of craft and technical/vocational training programmes have as such, been established to facilitate theincreased employability of these ‘at risk’ individuals. While there exists internationalresearch on a range of areas associated with Technical/Vocational Education andTraining (TVET) among the educationally disadvantaged, few local research effortshave specifically evaluated the implications of the current TVET framework to thesustainable development of the country. This paper seeks to fill that informationalgap. In particular, the paper assesses the degree of alignment between the designand objectives of one major postsecondary, technical/vocational training programmeand the occupational needs of the country. Moreover, this paper reviewsthe overall effectiveness of this training initiative in terms of its stated objectivesof achieving increased employability and marketability of its graduates. Ultimatelythe researcher points to possible deficiencies in the current arrangement of postsecondary,technical vocational training and its servicing of the nation’s ‘at risk’youth.