St. Maarten, Statia, Saba cooperate in training for vocational teachers

“Sharing is caring” has been the ada­gio of the network in voca­tional education between St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba in the past three years. The network has already resulted in two inter-island conferences at which profes­sionals in vocational educa­tion shared their experiences and gained inspiration.

The C-vet committee, con­sisting of Rosalie Edelstein of Gwendoline van Putten (GvP) School in St. Eusta­tius, Anton Hermans of Saba Comprehensive School and the St. Maarten represen­tative of the School Board for Secondary Education SVOBE schools decided to structurally share their plans for professional develop­ment.

This initiative resulted in a unique form of collabora­tion: from August 14 to Au­gust 23 the Caribbean Voca­tional Qualification (CVQ) assessor training, planned by GvP School, took place at Milton Peters College on St. Maarten with three par­ticipants from GvP School and New Challenges Foun­dation on Statia, four from Saba day-care centres, and four from St. Maarten, rep­resented by Sundial School, MPC, St. Maarten Academy PSVE and National Institute for Professional Advance­ment (NIPA).

Trainer Marlyn Rawlins from Technical and Voca­tional Education Training (TVET) Council in Barba­dos, had a very intensive pro­gramme in test construction
up her sleeve. Course participants honed their skills in how to effec­tively assess students and workers in executing a cer­tain vocational task, such as “welcoming clients in a customer-friendly way” and “identifying the right tools to repair a car transmission.” The training was completed with a practical exam dur­ing which the participants had to administer their test to a small group of students, and show the trainer mastery of the required assessment skills.

TVET Council Barbados will inform them in Octo­ber if they can officially call themselves CVQ assessors in their subject area.

The Daily Herald.