The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE government will introduce a national apprenticeship programme by amalgamating various private and public sector training initiatives, officials said yesterday.

National Tripartite Council Chairperson Sharon Martin said the Apprenticeship Act would be amended and updated to achieve this.

“The Bahamas does not have a national apprenticeship programme so you find that several places, businesses, everywhere, persons decide that they’re gonna have a national apprenticeship programme so what the government hopes to do is to amalgamate every apprenticeship programme,” said Ms Martin, a member of the National Apprenticeship Programmes Board.

Her comments came during a press conference.

She said: “There are some programmes that are called training programmes so what we call work-based programmes are all over the country so we have to make definitions. We have to define what an apprenticeship programme looks like.”

Ms Martin said work has started to amend the law and establish the national programme.

“We are at the stage that by June, we will come to the public for consultations, so public consultations have actually started. We have done at least three public consultations with what we call the social partners — the government, the workers and the employers,” she said.

“And they have looked at the bill. They have tweaked (the bill). They have said what they want and do not want in the bill, and so the bill has now gone back to the draftsman for revision and then it comes back to us so that we can take it to the wider public.”

She said the programme will focus on developing skills in information and communication technologies (ICT), maritime, health services and construction.

“Those are the major industries that we have to focus on,” she said.

Minister of State for Education Zane Lightbourne, head of the apprenticeship programme’s board, thanked the International Labour Organization (ILO) for helping implement the programme.

He said: “Definitely, this is an opportunity for us to again be excited about something for our young people, for us to be excited about the forward movement in our nation and for us to pretty much jump into sharing the good news and giving our young men and young ladies hope that there are places they can begin and a future they can look into where they can expand and go as high and as far as they want to in the work sector.”

Labour Minister Keith Bell and Works and Utilities Minister Alfred Sears also praised the apprenticeship programme, with Mr Bell calling it a “bold initiative”.

“This is a time for all of us Bahamians to get involved,” he said. “There will be widespread consultation. Get to know what the national apprenticeship programme is all about. Engage the committee. Engage everyone to ensure that we come up with the best possible programme because you know we are going to come back to this very soon.”