By Errol Gregory, Gleaner WriterIF ASSESSED in terms of the numbers game specifically the percentage of the working population that is trained, one is tempted to conclude that the HEART Trust/NTA has had questionable success. This is so as the Trust was initially established in 1982 to prepare Jamaican school leavers for the world of work as part of a broader strategy of tackling youth unemployment.
But to make any such negative determination would not only be simplistic but would also miss the significant qualitative changes that have taken place in the HEART Trust's methodology in its quest for the development of a world-class competitive workforce.
These changes have ultimately impacted positively on the numbers of trained and certified workers graduating from HEART-related training courses.
SCHOOL 'DROPOUTS'.
To see this, however, we have to briefly revisit the HEART Trust/NTA story.
Started in 1982 and now in its 22nd year, the Trust started with the expressed purpose of addressing the need of school "dropouts". This proved to be essentially a stop-gap measure and in 1992 the HEART Trust became the National Training Agency, hence the letters NTA were added to its name.
As a result of this change, the Trust's role expanded beyond just conducting training programmes and it became responsible for setting occupational standards to facilitate certification. To cement this change, in 1994 the HEART Trust Act was amended and the National Council for Technical Voca-tional and Education Training (NCTVET) set up. Established as a separate agency, the NCTVET was with its own Board but was funded by the Trust. In July 1995, the national council introduced the National Vocational Qualification of Jamaica (NVQA) an internationally recognised occupational qualification for a range of jobs in the Jamaican economy.
In the aftermath of this change, the HEART Trust/NTA concentrated on the development of instructional material, assessment and certifying young persons competent in particular skill areas. In conjunction with the Voca-tional Training Development Institute (VTDI), 30 training centres, 10 academies and numerous NGO-operated training institutions were put in operations.
STRATEGIES
And yet even with this change that witnessed an expansion in the numbers that came under HEART's ambit, its Board was still cognisant that the pace of increase of the proportion of the workforce that was trained was not happening at a fast enough clip, and instructed the management of the company to explore strategies to address this.
In pursuit of this goal and conscious of the demands of a globalised world on the local workforce, the management took the decision to look around the world to study industry best practices and determine how they could be adjusted to the Jamaican realities.
This study led to the development of modular training programmes. This meant that the study of cosmetology, for example, was broken down into its component parts such as nail technology and hair styling and individuals could opt for training in these specific areas rather than selecting the traditional omnibus generic training programme.
