ST JAMES, Jamaica – The Ministry of Tourism, through the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Innovation (JCTI), in partnership with HEART Trust NTA, commence a massive, free training and certification blitz for up to 30,000 participants on Monday.

According to Carol Rose Brown, director of the JCTI, the training blitz will be funded by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF).

“The sector here and abroad is in trouble. We are desperate to find workers and our ministry, through the JCTI, which has responsibility for training, we are tasked yet again to making some input into this process. We are rolling out a new certification programme. In the next few weeks we are planning to certify 2,000 and 3,000 people. Classes will begin on Monday (yesterday). Each programme is three days long and at the end of the cycle we will do our job fairs to introduce these candidates to the sector,” Rose Brown announced.

She was addressing the 2022 JCTI graduation ceremony held at Montego Bay Convention Centre recently.

“Get certified and prepare yourself. This certification is free of cost. We will pay for all of the certification, providing lunches during the days,” Rose Brown said

Dr Carey Wallace, executive director of TEF, who was also in attendance at the graduation exercise for 1,787 candidates who participated in several programmes for the period April 2021 to August 2022, explained that the training programme is geared towards getting the participants in a state of readiness for employment in hotels.

“They have a training programme within the hotels so what we want to do is get them (trainees) at that job readiness to get in then continue the training within the hotel programme to then continue to move up the ladder. The hotels are saying that they can’t even get that basic level. Then that is where we have to address the situation and bridge that gap in getting our human capital to get them from where they are to that job readiness level,” Dr Wallace explained.

“When we speak with the hotels they say it is job readiness and so that is lacking… customer service skills and so on. So we felt that there was an opportunity for us to have this mass training and certification, partnering with HEART, to include job readiness skills, as well as to include the international customer service.

“The course is a three-day course. It is meant to be a crash course and the individuals may not have the time, the transportation cost, so it’s meant to be a blitz to get them up to the first rung of the ladder.”

The training blitz will target individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 across the resort towns, Dr Wallace said.

“We have seen where the hotels have tried to have large blitzes of employment and they have had like an employment day and they invited 200 persons but the rate of success from that employment sometimes is 16 and those numbers.”

Newly installed president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association Robin Russell welcomed the JCTI’s mass training initiative.

“The JCTI is doing a phenomenal job in training and accrediting persons so it’s not just accreditation, but it is international accreditation. It’s only through a well trained, educated workforce can we grow our industry. It’s the only way we can compete and our workforce understands and are able to function properly,” Russell told OBSERVER ONLINE.

“Too many people come into the industry and they’re not trained, they’re not certified. And what this will do is increase your worth. So a well trained person or educated person can demand more money when they go to a interview or start working. And that’s what we’re hoping to do that our workers are on a better level than starting off at zero,” Russell added.