Regional educator advocates for more technical and vocational education and training in CARICOM

The Chancellor of Saint Lucia’s highest institution of tertiary learning has happily welcomed Government’s decision to take Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to a higher level through the revamping of some secondary schools and called for wider regional involvement.

Dr. Madgerie Jameson-Charles, a senior educationist with decades of regional and international experience, was appointed President of Sir Arthur Lewis Community College (SALCC) last August and is a staunch supporter of the establishment of more TVET schools in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In an interview on a recent episode of Talking TVET (hosted by the TVET unit of the Ministry of Education and moderated by Phil Henderson), the headteacher cited many examples of the transformative power of TVET.

She briefly reviews the history that inspired her lifelong career, against the backdrop of a discipline she has taught and promoted nationally and internationally for nearly forty-five years.

Dr Jameson-Charles has a broad academic background including a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of the West Indies (UWI), a Masters in Employment Education from the University of Sheffield and a PhD in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

She is also a certified hospitality sector trainer through the Institute of International Education and the American Hotel and Lodging Association, a designation she obtained while pursuing her master’s degree in employment education.

The SALCC president, who previously served as a lecturer and coordinator of several educational programs at the University of the West Indies’ St. Augustine campus in Trinidad and Tobago, revealed that “I didn’t choose teaching” – rather, “teaching chose me!”

After high school, what she really wanted to do was sail on the then-popular Cunard Line.

Family and friends repeatedly encouraged “Madge” to become “a teacher or a nurse,” but “I always wanted so badly to be at sea, in the air, or somewhere out there . . .”

But her career remained in limbo – until March 1, 1980, when “I received a call from a nun from the Our Lady of Castries Primary School” who invited her to “serve” as a teacher for “three months…”

“Madge” initially refuses the nun’s offer, but is eventually encouraged to accept because “it’s only three months . . .”

Forty-four years later, Dr. Jameson Charles told Henderson: “Three months to go . . .”

Her initial “three-month” tenure as an “acting” school teacher stretched to five years, during which time Ms. Jameson developed a lifelong love affair with the school, its teachers, and its students.

Today, the island’s Ministry of Education has recently introduced TVET permanently in four secondary schools: Grand Riviere (Gros Islet), Marigot, Piaye and Anse Ger, and the principals are certainly delighted.

A surgeon told a TVET class in St. Augustine that learning to crochet as a child helped improve his surgical dexterity, leading the SALCC president to urge policymakers, teachers and parents to challenge themselves to always apply the many useful skills learned while growing up in their lives and work.

Describing Dr Jameson Charles as a “passionate advocate for TVET”, the presenter called for greater national and regional recognition of the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) system, which is already operational at SALCC, and explained the importance of the system for student admission and progression.

She compared Saint Lucia’s TVET initiatives with similar programmes in other regions, also emphasising their adaptability to national conditions.

Respondents discussed issues such as “Challenges in TVET education – from advocacy to implementation” and emphasized “innovative teaching methods” and “becoming an effective CVQ facilitator”.

Henderson described the regional educator as a “word of wisdom” that “provides valuable advice to educators and policymakers to strengthen TVET programs and their impact,” while also giving “valuable insights and practical advice” that “resonates with educators, students and policymakers,” or simply anyone interested in vocational education.

The SALCC president said TVET is vital to Caribbean education and should be promoted more widely across the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

She also sheds light on the interconnectedness between personal skills and stages of growth; and the importance of improving technical skills in changing times through evolving innovations.

Dr Jameson-Charles believes it is a major mistake for Caribbean societies to continue to use outdated colonial methods that classify children as “slow learners” simply because they may take longer to acquire new skills and are therefore sent to special “care” institutions.

She revealed that SALCC recently converted a traditional fuel car into the school’s first homemade electric vehicle (EV), which was built by students with different adaptation levels.

The SALCC President advocates for the integration of knowledge and skills with competencies and the adoption of a common regional standard Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) system.

She also explains the differences in the level and speed of adaptation among people of different personalities and experiences, especially among so-called “slow learners.”

Virtually everyone, anywhere, knows a student who can build and repair gadgets (from cell phones to computers), or a student who can win regional or international online competitions that reveal more about who they really are than their final exam grades ever could.

Dr. Jameson-Charles strongly recommended that teachers in the Caribbean today, especially those in non-TVET schools, should be trained to avoid the “slow learner” syndrome which actually results in slow growth among students.

The interview also coincided with another announcement from the Ministry of Education that made the principal happy: the ministry’s support for the “Save Our Boys” initiative by the Saint Lucia Social Development Fund (SSDF) to promote “greater participation in mentoring activities” among 120 young men.

The gender-biased nature of the project, funded by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), was directly acknowledged by Education Minister Shawn Edwards.

The minister pointed out that only 21.6 per cent of the nursing profession here is male – it is a profession with no gender barriers but is still largely considered as something only women can do in society, which still sees nurses only as Nightingales.

TVET and CVQ are time-tested elements that have been actively helping the people of the Caribbean long before they were given these two acronyms, and they have proven to be of everlasting help to those who have not received formal education and are serious about applying the knowledge they have learned while growing up to their life’s work.

However, today they are no longer concepts but actual means to achieve all possible ends.