An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has un­der­tak­en the ad­vance­ment of a Na­tion­al Man­pow­er Plan, which will guide set­ting pri­or­i­ties in terms of crit­i­cal skills need­ed for tar­get­ed ar­eas of de­vel­op­ment, with­in the ed­u­ca­tion and em­ploy­ment sys­tems.

This was re­vealed by Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, as she spoke at the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (APETT) tech­ni­cal con­fer­ence on Tues­day at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel.

Beck­les said the plan is be­ing de­vel­oped based on re­search con­duct­ed by the min­istry which re­vealed that there is a sense of ur­gency with­in the busi­ness sec­tor to pro­duce a plan for T&T. What the re­search iden­ti­fied, she said, was the ex­is­tence of skills gaps in ar­eas with­in the lo­cal labour mar­ket.  

“This has al­so been con­firmed by var­i­ous sur­veys such as the World Bank’s En­ter­prise Sur­vey 2010 and the Min­istry of Labour and Small and Mi­croEn­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment’s Va­can­cy Sur­vey Re­port 2012. In the En­ter­prise Sur­vey, 30 per cent of firms in T&T stat­ed that an in­ad­e­quate­ly ed­u­cat­ed work­force was a ma­jor con­straint to busi­ness and de­vel­op­ment,” the min­is­ter out­lined.

Beck­les not­ed that the in­te­gra­tion of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, AI, and dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion in man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­cess­ing presents sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties for Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDs) to en­hance pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, ef­fi­cien­cy, and com­pet­i­tive­ness.  

She said by lever­ag­ing AI al­go­rithms, au­toma­tion, and da­ta an­a­lyt­ics, man­u­fac­tur­ing agen­cies can op­ti­mise pro­duc­tion process­es, re­duce waste, and im­prove prod­uct qual­i­ty.  

“Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion al­so en­ables busi­ness­es in SIDs to ac­cess glob­al mar­kets, en­gage in e-com­merce, and par­tic­i­pate in the dig­i­tal econ­o­my, there­by di­ver­si­fy­ing our economies and cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth and de­vel­op­ment. This there­fore places small is­land economies in a po­si­tion to be cat­a­lysts in the glob­al econ­o­my ir­re­spec­tive of size,” the min­is­ter ex­plained.

She in­di­cat­ed that a skilled and eth­i­cal en­gi­neer­ing work­force is es­sen­tial for dri­ving in­no­va­tion, solv­ing com­plex chal­lenges, and en­sur­ing the re­spon­si­ble de­vel­op­ment and de­ploy­ment of tech­nol­o­gy. Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States must in­vest in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, en­gi­neer­ing, and math­e­mat­ics or STEM ed­u­ca­tion, vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, and life­long learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to equip our cit­i­zens with the knowl­edge and skills need­ed to thrive in the 21st-cen­tu­ry econ­o­my. More­over, she said en­gi­neers must ad­here to eth­i­cal stan­dards and prin­ci­ples that pri­ori­tise the well-be­ing of so­ci­ety, pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment, and up­hold hu­man rights.