Published: Wednesday | September 30, 2009
University administrators have called on the Government to institute a national manpower survey to determine the training needs of the country.
"It would be useful to have what we would call a national manpower needs projection but it has to be credible," said Joseph Pereira, deputy principal of the University of the West Indies, (UWI), Mona campus. He added that a major issue in the past was that one could not rely on some of the projections that were available.
Pereira, who was speaking at a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the newspaper's North Street, central Kingston, offices yesterday, said carryinig out the survey should be the responsibility of the Government as it would need to know the manpower needs for its training programmes.
He said this move would also assist the private sector and, if the two could come together, "it would help a range of public- and private-sector entities and the universities, and other tertiary institutions to better handle what are the projected needs for the workforce here."
Responsibility
Dr Kofi Nkrumah-Young, vice-president, planning and operations at the University of Technology, also agreed but said the Government needs to take on the responsibility through a tertiary-education commission.
"It cannot be done by the universities because it must be there to regulate the universities, and the universities cannot regulate themselves," Nkrumah-Young said.
Nkrumah-Young told The Gleaner after the forum that the survey would have additional benefits upon completion.
"It's actually a research study to be able to, at the end of it, direct the institutions on where to put the emphasis in terms of training."