EDUCATORS, drawn mainly from Jamaica’s secondary and tertiary vocational institutions, have begun a push to implement more competency-based education and training (CBET) in the local system, and met in Kingston on Friday to discuss how this could be achieved.

CBET is an education and training system that incorporates the appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes into the workforce preparation activity. In other words, it seeks to determine what the learner can do, as against knowledge-based education, which seeks to test the learner’s knowledge.

According to conference organisers, CBET was born out of the concerns of employers that there was a misfit between the demands of the workplace, and the preparation of individuals by the education and training system to meet their requirements.

Executive director of HEART Trust/NTA Robert Gregory set the tone for the conference, held at the Hilton Hotel, by outlining the need for improvement from the current system of education and training in Jamaica. In doing so, he disclosed that:

. 60 per cent of persons in the workforce under 35 years old have no educational qualifications;

. of persons over age 35, three out of every four have no educational qualifications;

. 20 per cent of adults are illiterate, while 15 per

cent of adults have basic literacy skills;

. 70 per cent of first-time job seekers have no occupational work qualification;

. almost one in every five students leave school after grade nine;

. almost one in every three grade 11 students do not sit exams; and

. of those who do sit exams, four out of every 10 fail English, while seven out of every ten fail Mathematics.

In light of the statistics, the HEART/NTA head suggested wider adoption of the CBET approach, which focuses on learning outcomes and competencies.

“We begin with what people must know and be able to do, then we build the curriculum and arrange our affairs to take us there,” Gregory said.

He added that the outcomes-based approach seeks to cater to the varied learning styles of different learners, unlike the present system of education and training which only caters to one learning style.

“When the learner knows what knowledge and competencies he must acquire, he can also assist in the process of learning and take responsibility for getting himself to that destination,” he noted.

The conference was staged by HEART and the Vocational Training Development Institute, which are responsible for the training and accreditation of workers in a range of mostly entry level positions in the workforce.