The National Skills Development Centre (NSDC) is celebrating its silver jubilee by looking back on 25 years of upskilling Saint Lucians, whilst simultaneously laying the groundwork for an ambitious future. The training organisation held a press briefing on October 28, at its headquarters in Bisee. General manager, Dr Selma St Prix, explained that NSDC is hoping to convert its academic programmes, to serve as a bridge between secondary and tertiary learning, especially in the technical and vocational fields.
“We want to collegiate the NSDC,” she said, noting that the new structure will retain a focus on at-risk youth, under the umbrella of corporate social responsibility. “The framework that we’re using will be the same technical framework, but it’s comparable to the academic framework also. So you find there will be progression.
“So those in the institutes, the tech-voc institutes, could matriculate to NSDC. And then those from NSDC, because we’re working together with Sir Arthur [Lewis Community College], would matriculate to Sir Arthur. So you would find progression there. So we would do level two, three, four, that kind of thing. And they would do level one coming to us, and then move to Sir Arthur. So we’re looking forward to great things.”
NSDC was formed at the turn of the century, and officially opened its doors in February 2021. St Prix told reporters that the institution’s work is being recognised locally and internationally. She revealed that, whereas finance has been an issue, the body has been taking matters into its own hands, whilst consolidating relationships locally and internationally.
“The government has been looking at us and trying to see how they could assist us,” she said. “We just launched our tourism [initiative], our Choiseul arts and crafts centre. So we’re looking forward to that, and we’re looking forward to doing more things. We’re looking forward to having more international partners. Sandals University have reached out to us as well, because we’re doing so many new things that are internationally sound. Apart from our Caribbean vocational qualifications (CVQ), we have international certification.”
Following a church service last weekend, and a games night, NSDC will be hosting a fund-raising show on November 8, where the skills of professional men will be auctioned off to members of the corporate sector. Deputy general manager Barry Paul and communications and public relations officer Dane Jules will also be featured in a calendar alongside successful former trainees. The proceeds from those two initiatives will go towards improving the accessibility of the building that houses NSDC.
Over the past quarter-century, the organisation has trained thousands of Saint Lucians in a wide variety of areas, ranging from hospitality and tourism to construction, agriculture, information technology, business studies, and technical services. St Prix recently sat on a World Bank panel about how to improve the lot of young men in education. Going forward, she says the intention is to entice more male students by including courses in mobile app development, virtual reality, gaming, and artificial intelligence.
“A lot of the agencies we work well with, the employers out there, are always calling us and asking us for trainees, because of our transversal skills, the life skills that we do,” she shared.
“We’ve recently done a training of trainers for staff for the faculty and staff, and we have to do some evaluations. So a lot of the things that we do, we do at a very high level. So we want people to believe in us, and to work with us, because we have a lot of things in store, especially in the technological areas.”
