PNP Rally | Crawford says PNP will introduce vocational labs in schools

The People’s National Party’s (PNP) Damion Crawford says a PNP government will make skills training a central part of its education agenda by introducing vocational labs in schools across Jamaica.

Speaking at a PNP mass rally in Sam Sharpe Square in St James on Sunday night, Crawford declared that the PNP will transform the education sector, empowering students and their parents with life skills.

“The People’s National Party is going to build four vocational labs in every high school, and we will allow a youth from 10th grade to start doing his HEART certification. That means that by the time he graduates, he will have a Level Four in HEART coming from school,” Crawford told PNP supporters.

The HEART/NSTA Trust is Jamaica’s main state-run national skills training institution.

Crawford said the initiative is aimed at giving students industry-ready qualifications while still in the classroom.

He added that the facilities will be accessible to adults after regular school hours.

“While the labs will be used by the children during the day, they will be used by the adults at night, and we will expand the certification in this country,” he said.

He further outlined plans for a “skill work card” programme, which he said would give young Jamaicans opportunities similar to the farm work programme but focused on trades.

“Everywhere I go, I hear a youth asking for a farm work card. Well, the PNP will be the first to introduce a skill work card,” Crawford told cheering comrades.

He noted that this promise formed part of a wider slate of education and training measures highlighted in his address, which included a focus on early literacy and stronger pathways for certification.

- Albert Ferguson

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