July 17, 2021
The student complement of the Barbados Vocational Training Board (BVTB) has been reduced by 50 per cent due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking during the Board’s Virtual Graduation class 2019-2020, themed
Change Call for Innovation, the Way Forward, Director of the BVTB Henderson Thompson said while the first semester commenced with 527 students enrolled in 24 different skills training programmes in August 2019, scores of students withdrew from the programme in the following months due to the pandemic.
Thompson said: “As the semester commenced, it was clear that COVID-19 took a toll on our enrollment numbers. We recorded a number of withdrawals from the various programmes after the lockdown. Today we have 218 graduands across the trades for the skills training programme”.
Residents of St Andrew now have a newly-renovated and modernized outpatient clinic.
The facility, which was due for permanent closure, will allow residents to access community-based services in an enhanced atmosphere.
At today’s opening ceremony, Minister of Health and Wellness Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic said due to serious infrastructural issues that plagued the building in the past, his ministry made the decision to carry out a complete overhaul of the facility.
Bostic said: “This outpatient’s clinic is now moving into the digital age. We have outfitted this clinic with six computers. We have upgraded the telephone system. They have printers and everything in here so that we are now going to digitize the records and everything in relation to this outpatients’ clinic. You will be able to make appointments online because we now have the facility here to be able to do that and that would improve a lot of things for the clients who utilize the services.”