School to conduct trade testing programme for students: Manager

The St Mary’s Technical Vocational School in Chimbu will conduct a trade testing programme this year to certify students’ skillsmanship and trades knowledge.
“Technical vocational schools are playing a crucial role in minimising unemployment and providing skills for life to young people for employment and for entrepreneurship,” technical vocational schools Highlands manager Paul Gun said.
He said there were 17 technical vocational schools in Chimbu and 58 in the Highlands.
Gun said with the curriculum reform, all schools were to conduct the national certificate (NC) programmes from NC one to NC three, diploma, advance diploma and degree.
“In order to implement the NC programme, there are certain criteria that need to be considered, such as teacher qualifications, tools and equipment,” Gun said.
In Chimbu, five of the schools that are effectively conducting the NC programmes are Mingende, Kundiawa, Mina, Kawa and recently, Aun.
Aun, a agriculture technical school, is aligned with the National Fisheries Authority.
It offers agriculture and aquaculture courses and will be issuing first batches of certificates to its students this year.
“We have the big number of schools because of the demand from students in districts and also the establishment of schools is driven by the department’s policy that each district should have a school,” Gun said.
“Chimbu is aggressively implementing the policy because we want to address job creation and education for all.”
He said Mingende was given the accreditation to conduct trade testing by the Department of Labour and Industry.
“This year, we are trying to conduct the first lot of trade testing that also complements our NC training programme in the school to provide a full and complete package to comply with industries expectations of tradesman certificate, which is regulated by the Department of Labour Industry’s National Trade Testing Board,” he said.
Gun said the offering of diploma and degree courses was in compliant with the national qualifications framework.
He the number of technical vocational schools in the Highlands was expected to double in the future.
St Mary’s Mingende Tvet manager Joanne Mondia said the school remained the biggest Catholic-run school in Chimbu at level eight since its establishment in 1990.
She said the school took on the NC programme in 2017 with over 400 students enrolled.