Continue to learn
Barbadians are being encouraged to develop a lifelong learning mindset.
In fact, the government of Barbados has been initiating several programmes to assist in the continuous building of skills and knowledge.
“We realize that people who left school 20, 30, 40 years ago, need to continue to learn. It’s one thing to say that you benefited from free education because of Errol Barrow and because of that "I am where I am today", but the world is changing and the world of work is changing,” stressed Senator Dr. the Hon. Esther Byer Suckoo.
“If we are not careful, as systems change in the work place and become more automated or companies from overseas come in and bring new processes in - if we are not willing to learn, we are going to find ourselves on the breadline…You will hear you can no longer fit into the organization.”
The Minister of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development was at the time delivering the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) lunchtime lecture “Enhancing our Largest Resource…The new role of government in enhancing productivity”.
Highlighting the importance of the Retraining Fund, she said “If you were unemployed and are going back into the workplace and wonder how you are going to compete with recent University graduates with their degrees – remember your skills counts and you can sharpen them and go learn some of the new techniques.”
“We are actually finding different routes for people to self-actualize. We are saying to those of you whose lives have taken a different path, you can still achieve to your potential because we are making the facilities available for that to happen,” she told the gathering at DLP's, George Street headquarters.
The Minister also revealed that last year, the Occupational Classification system within her Ministry was upgraded. She admitted that is the first time in 20 years.
“So, we now have a listing in the Ministry of the new occupations so that Guidance Counselors can now give better advice to students; the National Employment Bureau (NEB) can now give better advice; as well as the University and training agencies. The student themselves can look and see exactly the occupation areas that they can strive for – plan a future for themselves,” Dr. Byer Suckoo said. (TL)