THE Ministry of Culture,Youth and Sport (CYS) will this year intensify its efforts to fine-tune and upgrade the curriculum of the Kuru Kuru Training Centre on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway, as well as to accommodate more students to the residential training programmes there.Students at the New Opportunity School on the Essequibo Coast will be exposed to the curriculum of the Training Centre as part of the programme for equipping them with skills to make them employable after they leave the institution.
Work is also ongoing on the formulation of the National Youth Policy, with the assistance of two consultants from Barbados.
These disclosures were made by Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony, while reporting on some of the work of the Youth Department in 2013, yesterday.
He said the ministry turned out some 250 graduates from the Kuru Kuru Training Centre last year.
These youths had received training in various skills, including carpentry, masonry and motor mechanics. .
A major feature had been the programme to ensure that regardless of their trade, they were given the additional skill of driving a motor vehicle .
He said that a motor car had been acquired and the centre had collaborated with the police to enable graduates to acquire their drivers’ licences before graduation.
This was done because the ministry saw driving as a very important skill and an additional means to make them employable.
He said the ministry had also held successful non-residential skill training courses for youths at a centre at Sophia, and another at Vryman’s Erven in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
During 2013, some 120 youths graduated from Sophia and 50 from the centre at New Amsterdam.
He said that most of the trainees had been school drop-outs.
They had received stipends during training, which encouraged them to attend the courses.
They were all attached as apprentices to various organisations, thus acquiring a means of obtaining employment after training.
Minister Anthony disclosed that the ministry is currently receiving assistance from the Canadian Government in fine-tuning and expanding the curriculum of the Kuru Kuru centre.
The work was done in 2013 by a Canadian volunteer who has since submitted a master plan which is now being looked at.
He said that salient recommendations are quite likely to be taken on board in the thrust to make the centre more effective in equipping youths with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to making a meaningful contribution to national development.
With respect to the National Youth Policy, he said that the ministry had established an advisory group which has been working with the consultants on issues relating to youth.
The team has held extensive consultations with various stakeholders across Guyana, and has produced a draft National Youth Policy which is currently being refined.
Written By Clifford Stanley