Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is promis­ing a ma­jor re­boot of state-fund­ed youth ini­tia­tives, this time with ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy, and in­dus­try-aligned train­ing at the fore­front.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre yes­ter­day at bmo­bile’s Fu­ture Lead­ers In­tern­ship func­tion.

Cur­rent­ly, 600 in­terns aged 17 to 21 are be­ing trained in AI, pro­cure­ment, dig­i­tal sales, and oth­er skills.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar linked the in­tern­ship to her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s broad­er dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion ef­forts, in­clud­ing the cre­ation of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence and the re­in­state­ment of the Schools Lap­top Pro­gramme for all Form One stu­dents.

“As we pre­pare the na­tion­al bud­get, youth de­vel­op­ment will stay cen­tral in that bud­get. Take no­tice, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and all min­is­ters—youth de­vel­op­ment must be at the cen­tre of every­thing that we do in the up­com­ing bud­get. We must in­vest in tech-voc ed­u­ca­tion again for prac­ti­cal de­vel­op­ment,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the in­tern­ship spans five streams—tech­ni­cal, sales, cus­tomer ser­vice, sup­port ser­vices, and qual­i­ty as­sur­ance, which are the “core en­gines” of tele­coms and the dig­i­tal econ­o­my.

Over three weeks, par­tic­i­pants will be im­mersed in TSTT’s op­er­a­tions, de­vel­op­ing pro­fes­sion­al habits, emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty aware­ness, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, while com­plet­ing sim­u­la­tions that cul­mi­nate in a pre­sen­ta­tion to se­nior ex­ec­u­tives.

The Prime Min­is­ter said her Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to youth em­pow­er­ment is long­stand­ing and will now be ex­pand­ed.

Re­flect­ing on her decades-long in­volve­ment in ed­u­ca­tion, from teach­ing in sec­ondary schools to serv­ing as Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, lec­tur­er, lawyer, and so­cial work­er, she em­pha­sised that youth de­vel­op­ment was not “a pro­gramme, but a prin­ci­ple… not a sea­son, but a life­long com­mit­ment.”

She tied the event to the re­cent ob­ser­vance of UN In­ter­na­tion­al Youth Day (Au­gust 12) and UN World Youth Skills Day (Ju­ly 15), not­ing that her Gov­ern­ment’s pledges in­clud­ed many of the train­ing mea­sures.

Every ap­pli­cant to the in­tern­ship al­so re­ceives a free two-day AI course de­signed for non-tech­ni­cal learn­ers, cov­er­ing fun­da­men­tals, risks, and re­al-world ap­pli­ca­tions.

“That is the kind of door-open­ing our youth de­serve,” she added.

The Prime Min­is­ter un­der­scored that these com­mit­ments build on a proven record from her 2010–2015 ad­min­is­tra­tion, when tens of thou­sands ac­cessed na­tion­al pro­grammes such as YTEPP (17,928 trained), On-the-Job Train­ing (24,394), GATE (191,707), HYPE (4,094), MuST (8,355), Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (8,938), Gov­ern­ment Schol­ar­ships (9,463), Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre trained (7,323), Na­tion­al Life Skills Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme (23,559), Re­train­ing Pro­gramme (2,866), Youth Ap­pren­tice­ship Pro­gramme in Agri­cul­ture (41,303), the Na­tion­al Men­tor­ship Pro­gramme (163) and 99 Na­tion­al Youth De­vel­op­ment & Ap­pren­tice­ship Cen­tres were es­tab­lished.

“These are not mere fig­ures,” she said. “They are lives redi­rect­ed, fam­i­lies strength­ened, and com­mu­ni­ties re­vi­talised.”

“We have to get these pro­grammes go­ing again,” she said.

Mean­while, Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers coach Dwayne Bra­vo chal­lenged the in­terns to take full ad­van­tage of op­por­tu­ni­ties and re­sist the pull of crime.

“I grew up in a vil­lage that was sur­round­ed by drugs, guns, and I could have eas­i­ly been led down the wrong way. But my pas­sion and my fo­cus—fu­ture leader. I al­ways want­ed to be my own leader. And for me, lead­er­ship is not just about self. It’s about un­der­stand­ing where you want to go and what you want to achieve and ac­com­plish for your­self.”

“I nev­er drink al­co­hol, nev­er gam­ble, nev­er do no form of drugs. I was still able to be suc­cess­ful and ful­fill my pas­sion and my dream. Find your pur­pose, find your pas­sion, and go af­ter it. Don’t let any­one tell you you can­not achieve what you set your mind to.”

“You have a prime min­is­ter who be­lieves in the youth and be­lieves in the fu­ture gen­er­a­tion… Please don’t take it for grant­ed. When you have op­por­tu­ni­ties, grab it with both hands.”