Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Training, Professor Prakash Persad, says the Government is taking steps to ensure Trinidad and Tobago’s workforce remains competitive in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and technological change.
Addressing concerns about jobs being displaced by artificial intelligence, he said his Ministry is implementing strategies designed to equip citizens with industry-relevant skills and create pathways for continuous learning.
“We have been actively repositioning our tertiary education skills training system to respond exactly to this challenge. So we are placing emphasis on short cycle industry-aligned training, like some of this is happening now, micro credentials and flexible learning pathways.”
The Minister explained that micro-credentials are designed to support lifelong learning by allowing individuals to acquire specific skills through shorter courses while building qualifications over time.
“Micro credentials is a new term that you can say 10-15 hours, you do a course, you get some particular skill, you’re looking at developing what we call a credit bank, where your credits for that course is stored in the bank and as you go forward you can use it as you go on that way.”
Professor Persad also revealed that the Ministry is making progress on policies aimed at supporting these initiatives.
“That policy, we got approval from Cabinet to discuss with stakeholders how we implement that and up to last week there was a big international conference in Trinidad on that and one before that also, so it’s in progress and you’ll hear more about that.”
He added that ongoing discussions with the Ministry of Education could see students being introduced to skills training much earlier in their academic careers.
“I’m in discussions with the Minister of Education, we are looking at a parallel pathway upwards, so some may become economists but some may become engineers but you learn STEM and these sort of things from early age and you’re looking at skills training a lot earlier where we want to integrate fully with the Ministry of Education, so these things are in works, it’s happening.”
Minister Persad was speaking at the Future Forward event, hosted by Paria Fuel Trading Company Limited and the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI).