By Dionne Best
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (GIS) – Production integration is key to economic development across the region to allow countries within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to create the results that are needed and to lessen their dependency on those coming to their rescue.
Minister of training and tertiary education, Sandra Husbands, made these remarks ahead of a tour of the Williams Industries PV plant, in Cane Carden, St Thomas, by students and staff of the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT).
“We have to stop thinking as Barbadians, Trinidadians, Jamaicans, and treat the space as our space, and pool the capital and the resources [which] make it easy for persons like yourself to be able to move across the region with ease and work.
“If we can have integration of our production, we can maximise the land space that you have in Belize… in Suriname,… in Guyana, and you can maximise the knowledge capacity that you have in Trinidad and Barbados and Jamaica, etc. to be able to build out world class facilities that have as their view, the world … as the market that we are going to serve, and we need to get there,” she said.
Minister Husbands added that her ministry is focused on not just ‘arming’ students with the technical skills that they need in a particular field, but also on providing the entrepreneurial outlook, business training, and whatever else is necessary for them to take what they have learnt and build enterprises that can compete globally.
“One of the things that has to happen in education is that we have to be able to train our students, as many of them as we can, in the higher level skills, especially in the Tech Voc. (Technical and Vocational) area, and this will allow us to be able to create a workforce that will be able to attract investment to utilise those skills and to earn the higher salaries. This is what is going to generate the economic growth and sustain the services that we are so accustomed to.”
The training and tertiary education described the island-wide study tour as a great opportunity for students of the UTT to not just visit a number of enterprises in Barbados, but have a first-hand look at how its businesses function, exposing their strengths and weaknesses.
“I believe that this is a wonderful endeavour because one of the things that must happen in the region, we have to raise professionals who understand the problems and the needs of the region, so that when we are doing research, when we’re doing innovation, we’re innovating to present solutions for the country. Those have to come from us, and there’s nobody better to do it than for us to do it for ourselves,” she stressed.
Minister Husbands also expressed appreciation to the touring party for participating in the initiative. “Our people are as brilliant as anyone in the world. We only have to look at steel pans…. We only have to look at carnival…. We only have to look at what is happening in technology. Our people are able; they are creative; they are innovative, and so I want to sincerely salute UTT in what you are doing today by visiting us here in Barbados,” she said.
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