THE HEART Trust/National Training Agency will break the 50,000 mark in the number of Jamaicans enrolled in training and certification for the fiscal year 2004-2005, which ends on March 31.
Executive director of the trust, Robert Gregory, says this means that more people are being trained and assessed for certification than at any other time in Jamaica's history.
Speaking at a media briefing on the National Skills Competition at HEART's corporate offices in Kingston last week, Mr. Gregory said HEART's annual training enrolment moved from 34,000 in 2002-2003, to 42,000 for 2003-2004 and a projected 50,000 for 2004-2005.
He also announced that the National Training Agency is budgeting to spend over $340m in the 2005-2006 fiscal year to certify well over 20,000 workers in firms and organisations.
"Our mission strategy is to enroll 100,000 persons every year in training and assessment programmes in our institutions, and critically in Jamaican firms. We will continue to ramp up the numbers until we achieve certification of at least half of the Jamaican workforce by 2008," said Mr. Gregory.
ENHANCING PRODUCTIVITY
The HEART chief said the key focus of his organisation is on enhancing the productivity and competitiveness of Jamaican firms, using its enterprise-based training as it's number one tool to achieve what he called a 'national imperative'.
Mr. Gregory noted that all of HEART's academies, vocational training centres and community-based training projects are operating at full capacity.
Executive director of the Jamaica Employers' Federation (JEF), Jacqueline Coke-Lloyd, lauded the trust for its focus on workforce intervention programmes and enterprise-based training.
Mrs. Coke-Lloyd noted that recent research has shown that at least 70 per cent of the Jamaican workforce is untrained and noted that HEART's on the job training and workforce intervention efforts would go a far way in the upgrading and certification of existing workers.
She noted that JEF and HEART had partnered in a far-reaching memorandum of understanding to build a 21st-century Jamaican workforce.
