The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The National Training Agency’s (NTA) has shot down Opposition criticism that the Christie administration’s revamped $22m apprenticeship program is merely a retread of the Ingraham administration’s 52-week jobs programme, telling Tribune Business: “We have raised the standard.”

Agatha Marcell, the NTA’s director, told Tribune Business that the Ingraham administration’s 52-week jobs programme had lacked structure and accountability. Prime Minister Perry Christie announced during his budget communication last Wednesday that the government will launch a $22m apprenticeship programme aimed at reducing youth unemployment. The programme will be jointly managed by the Office of the Prime Minister and the National Training Agency, he said. Mr Christie said that under the government’s new programme, people will be “paid to work and train in a very formal manner, with certification on completion of the apprenticeship period”. He noted that the programme is unlike the 52-week jobs programme created by the former Ingraham administration in 2011. That programme paid and placed Bahamians who were unsuccessful at finding jobs in various positions in both the private and government sector. The employers then had the option to permanently hire the workers if they so desired after 52 weeks. Mr Christie has called the programme “scandalous”, claiming it allowed participants to collect a pay cheque without showing up to work. The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) cancelled the plan shortly after winning the last election.

“There was no structure to the programme or to hold employers or the people in that programme accountable for producing results, that was the reason the programme was so willy-nilly. What this apprenticeship programme is intended to do first and foremost is to have persons go through the NTA’s soft skills programme,” said Mrs Marcell.

“The National Training Agency (NTA) is an entity that has been legislated and the NTA among other things is supposed to create a job training, job placement system for the development of technical and vocational skills in the country. The NTA is a statutory, regulatory certification ad qualifications body. The training we provide is not done by the agency but done by us registering young people who we then send to industry training providers who have their own venues, equipment and materials. These young people are certified through international partners like City & Guilds,” she added.

Mrs Marcell said that the NTA has had more than 2,500 graduates to date. “We have another 270 persons in the process of completing. This would be the sixth cohort. They are in their last few weeks of skills training. We find that we have an 88-90 per cent retention rate of young people who go through the entire 14 weeks and complete the programme. Before they go to the apprenticeships, they have to successfully go through the job preparation that the NTA is going to provide for them. Also, a component of this apprenticeship job training programme is that they have to be monitored at the work place they go to to do their apprenticeship. Someone has to know that these people are showing up. That was the weakness of the 52-week programme under the former administration. We have raised the standard. It’s my view that if this apprenticeship programme comes into being they should not be given a dollar that they have not earned. That was the issue with the last programme. Those who are criticising don’t know what they are talking about,” said Mrs Marcell.

She added: “We would have been able to place directly over 30 per cent of the graduates on jobs. However, when we go out, we run into many of them who we didn’t place or they would call us up and tell us that they found employment. We estimate that we would place somewhere just under 50 per cent of the people who have gone through the job preparation and skills training programme with us. Since last December, we were able to place 16 persons at Resorts World Bimini and five persons at the One & Only Ocean Club after going through our butler programme,” she said.