Trade professionals receive training under national board

SIXTEEN trades professionals at the Porgera mine in Enga are now qualified assessors under the National Apprenticeship and Trade Testing Board (NATTB).
This followed a two-day NATTB training delivered by assistant director Arthur Geno at the mine from Sept 24-25.
These assessors would now assist NATTB officers to conduct assessments on the mine’s trade trainees, unlike previous years when the assessment on trainees was done only by the NATTB representatives.
Maintenance training technical specialist Craig Reaks said the 16 assessors would now assist NATTB assessors to award competent trade trainees qualification as tradesmen.
“This in turn helps to develop not only skills of PJV employees, but also PNG as a whole,” he said.
“We also thank the mine’s senior management for supporting this endeavour to allow our trade trainees to be qualified tradespeople.”
Executive managing director Anthony Esplin said having qualified tradesmen was necessary for successful operation of the mine.
“Our employees are our greatest asset so training to continuously improve our skills set is important to us.”
The NATTB assessor training on site covered understanding competency-based assessment, evidence gathering, planning the assessment, developing assessment tools and conducting an assessment.
Participants Judah Numelah, a supervisor at the fixed plant maintenance, Ernest Kenny, a supervisor at the surface mobile fabrication and machine workshop, and Jonah Raima, an electrical tradesman, said the training would add more value to their different roles and help trainees as well.