Basseterre, St. Kitts, January 19, 2016 (SKNIS): The Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College (CFBC) President Dr. Kelvin Daly has declared that the tertiary-level learning institution is poised and ready to take the lead on Prior Learning Assessment Recognition (PLAR).
He said this while declaring the CFBC PLAR workshop opened on January 18, noting that this is one of the ways in which the college can assist individuals.
“This is the kind of area that we are very much interested in because our mandate as a college is to educate as much persons on the tertiary level as possible, so those persons can find their way in a very competitive economy that we are facing throughout the world now,” Dr. Daley said, adding that global times call for extraordinary effort to get persons trained and certified.
The workshop was described as timely considering that the institution has always tried to find ways to accommodate persons who have left or never participated in higher education.
“How do we assess them for admission and give them credit for what they have learned from experience,” Dr. Daly said, demonstrating that previously this was not an easy task for the college. “So this is a wonderful support for us to institute such a policy now that we have this onboard, starting with the Agri-programme.”
PLAR is an assessment used to evaluate skills and knowledge that are learned outside of a formal learning environment and it forms part of the CARICOM for Education Employment Programme (CEFE) initiative, which is designed to become a permanent fixture in the assessment of persons within the Technical Division.
Dr. Daly said it is applicable to several other programmes.
“I’m hoping that Nova Scotia Community College at the end of the CEFE project will perhaps partner with us independently to do some more PLAR training in different areas because the need is indeed very great,” he said. “There are a lot of persons in the community in St. Kitts and Nevis, whether they are in technical skills or otherwise, who would benefit greatly from having certification offered through PLAR.”
Dr. Linda Cooke, Senior Technical Advisor at the CEFE said that persons certified through PLAR can complete the full vocational qualification that enables them to work anywhere within the CARICOM region without a work permit.
The workshop, which runs from January 18 – 22, is facilitated by Zoran Kondali and Jennifer Archer and is a partnership between the Canadian Government, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia Community College International, CARICOM and CFBC.