ALL institutions delivering training in early childhood development must now use competency standards instead of occupational standards.

The changes took effect Wednesday, and the National Council on Technical Vocational Education and Training (NCTVET) said it had already advised the 30 institutions registered with it.

Marjorie Barrett, information and promotions officer at the NCTVET, told the Observer that the development was indicative of the decision by the entity to adopt the New Zealand/Australian model of a competency-based system to keep up with global learning trends, place more people in jobs and make qualifications more relevant to jobs.

At present, she said the NCTVET is conducting islandwide workshops to bring educators up to speed with the development.

“The occupational system is a thing of the past… so we would have greater numbers of people being certified in Jamaica in shorter time, greater flexibility in terms of how they got the certification, and so on,” Barrett said.

“Because of this thrust, organisations offering the training have to now begin to understand it and come on par because that’s the system we are now using,” she added.

She noted that previously, training materials were packaged into occupational standards, and what that meant was that all the requirements for an occupation would be lumped together.

“So if a student enters a training programme, that student would not have been able to complete a programme unless he or she had done everything in the qualification. [But] with the changeover, people can take from the occupation the specifics of a job,” she explained.

“So, for example, if you have an occupation known as food and beverage, the person would have to do everything in that occupation regardless of whether they were just a bartender or a waiter or just a front office person…now in competency standards, it means you just take from that occupation the specifics of a job; so you can actually just take out the unit that is required for you to be a bartender or a waiter, and you will be recognised for those competencies only,” she said.

Added Barrett: “It is a system that actually breaks it out for persons that even if they don’t want to do a full qualification they can do the unit specific to a job and they will be recognised for it. So that is the big difference – it’s the formatting and the packaging that’s really different.”