CARICOM Education for Employment Program (C-EFE) Launches Institutional Partnerships

Hon. Nigel Carty

C-EFE, a $20 million program sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and implemented by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) is hosting a workshop on Results Based Management at the St. Kitts Marriott on January 16 and 17, 2013 for stakeholders in Technical and Vocational Education and Training from across the Caribbean. The session begins at 9:00 am and closes at 4:00 pm each day.

The Honourable Nigel Carty, Minister of Education and Information, will open the workshop with a keynote address focusing on TVET in St. Kitts and Nevis. The workshop will be facilitated by Mr. Evan Green, Partner and International Programme Manager from Le Group-conseil Baastel, a Canadian-based company specializing in monitoring and evaluation.

The C-EFE program is designed to contribute to an increased competitive, productive and gender-equitable workforce in the CARICOM region by supporting the development of enhanced, demand-driven TVET and workforce certification systems. The program design identifies a number of key results, and this interactive two-day workshop will help to refine the target results and identify key sources of data through input from stakeholders drawn from National Training Agencies, TVET education units, TVET Councils, and colleges in the twelve countries participating in the C-EFE (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago).

The C-EFE program was launched in March 2012, and is delivered in partnership with the Caribbean Association of National Training Agencies (CANTA) and the Association of Caribbean Tertiary Institutions (ACTI). Key activities to date have included sponsoring the development of a new Regional Strategy for TVET with CANTA, and the development of a leadership program for managers of institutions delivering skills training with ACTI.

The first seven of 16 institutional partnerships with Caribbean and Canadian colleges working collaboratively on the development or renewal of programming linked to labour market needs were launched in Barbados on December 5. Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College will participate in the second round of partnerships, to be launched in February 2013.