Barbadians urged to learn new skills

Barbadians are being encouraged to use this time to learn new skills.

This encouragement came from Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, as she gave remarks recently.

The Prime Minister expressed that she believed persons should use this period of “disruption of crisis” to learn skills that they would need in order to make Barbadians globally competitive.

She revealed that over the course of the last few months, the current Government administration developed a National People Development Policy for the period of 2020 to 2025 that complemented the strategic priorities of the National Transformation Initiative, whose principles guide the creation of a flexible and resilient workforce.

“What does all that mean? It means that we must use this period of disruption of crisis to learn the skills that we need to make us globally competitive, star Bajans, and all of us know what it is to be a star,” she said.

“It means we must continue to have and do the following things: we must have confidence with a mindset of excellence and integrity, fairness and honesty and transparency. We must have active team players who can communicate effectively, not speak for the sake of speaking, but who understand that communication is about people understanding what is being said on both sides.

“You must have engaged learners with a passion for lifelong learning, and a sense of responsibility. You can’t stop learning along this journey, and believe you me, you have to take responsibility in life.”

Mottley also noted that now was the time for digital literacy to improve and for citizens to find solutions for digital crises because the pandemic would have revealed that digital literacy was critical due to the fact that so much of what is done now needed to be communicated or delivered digitally. (CLJB)