Participant, Oswald Husbands, operating the automatic scrubber during the final practical session.
Trainers, Andrew Payne and Kay Baptiste, trying out the Nano Edge during the final practical session.
BAPC aiming to have more certified cleaners
THE Barbados Association of Professional Cleaners (BAPC) wants to see a greater number of local cleaning professionals become certified.
To this end, 46 persons – supervisory and other staff, from several cleaning firms, have done the inaugural Janitorial Cleaning Service Level 2 National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) certification. The 14-week course was carried out in conjunction with the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council and the Small Business Association (SBA).
Speaking to The Barbados Advocate on the sidelines of the final practical class at BAPC’s Training Centre at Sugar Cane Mall, Roebuck Street, Bridgetown, BAPC Past President Andrew Payne said the curriculum for the course was developed by TVET in tandem with the cleaning companies. He added he was pleased with the success and involvement of participants.
“Members of the Association got to be a part of this pilot programme and so going forward, we would like to be able to take this throughout the cleaning industry for all cleaning companies and persons to have certified cleaners in all the buildings from government staff to people from overseas because right now, it is a National Vocational Qualification certification, but we want it to be a CVQ [Caribbean Vocational Qualification] for the region. So we would like to invite the region to come to the first-ever training facility for cleaners to Barbados in the future.”
Payne stressed the significance of professionals in the industry gaining their certification.
“The certification now would let people that may not have completed it and that have been working in the field for maybe five or 10 years, don’t have necessarily the qualification as a professional cleaner, to now feel proud about themselves and to have that paper behind their experience. I think for the industry it motivates the supervisors, it motivates the persons involved and it gives them a sense of how to operate safely in the environment being that there are all kinds of issues in the work place from health and safety down to indoor air quality problems. And this course covers the full gambit of all issues surrounding cleaning.” (MG)