The Principal of Saint Lucia’s highest tertiary institution gladly welcomes the government’s decision to place Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) on a higher plane through conversion of some secondary schools and is calling for its wider regional engagement.
Dr Madgerie Jameson-Charles, a veteran educator with decades of regional and international experience, was appointed Principal of the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College (SALCC) last August – and is also a strong proponent for more TVET schools across the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Interviewed on a recent edition of ‘Talking TVET’ – a program by the Education Ministry’s TVET Unit hosted by Phil Henderson – the principal offers numerous examples of TVET’s transformative power.
She gives a brief historical view of what sparked her lifelong professional journey through a subject she’s taught and promoted, at home and abroad, for nearly four-and-a-half decades.
Dr Jameson-Charles’ extensive academic background includes: A Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology from the University of the West Indies (The UWI), a Master’s Degree in Education for Employment from University of Sheffield and a Ph. D in Education Learning and Instruction in Higher Education from the University of Otago in New Zealand.
She’s also a certified Hospitality Department Trainer from Education International and American Hotel and Lodging, pursued while doing her Master’s in Education for Employment.
A former lecturer and coordinator of several education programs at The UWI’s St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad & Tobago, the SALCC Principal reveals: “I didn’t choose Teaching” – but instead: “Teaching chose me!”
After secondary school, she actually wanted to sail on the then-popular Cunard Line cruise ships.
‘Madge’ was repeatedly encouraged by family and friends to become “a teacher or a nurse”, but, “I always really wanted to go out on the sea, or in the sky, or somewhere out there…”
Bu her career remained at sea – until March 1, 1980, “when I got a call from a nun at the Ave Maria Primary School” in Castries, inviting her to “hold on” (act) for a teacher, “for three months…”
‘Madge’ initially rejected the nun’s offer, but was eventually encouraged to accept, as it was “for only three months…”
Forty-four years later, Dr Jameson-Charles told Henderson: “It’s still three months…”
Her first ‘three-month’ stint as an ‘acting’ school teacher extended to five long years, during which Ms Jameson developed her lifelong love affair with schools, teachers and students.
The principal is understandably happy today that the island’s Ministry of Education recently took TVET permanently to four secondary schools: Grand Riviere (Gros Islet), Marigot, Piaye and Anse Ger.
Drawing on the telling lesson of a medical surgeon who told a TVET class at St. Augustine that learning crochet as a child helped sharpen his surgical dexterity, the SALCC Principal urged policymakers, teachers and parents to challenge themselves to always apply, in life and at work, the many useful skills learnt while growing-up.
Described by the host as ‘a passionate advocate of TVET’, Dr Jameson-Charles calls for more national and regional recognition for the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) system (that’s already operational at SALCC), explaining its importance for student admissions and progress.
She compares Saint Lucia’s TVET initiatives with similar programs elsewhere, equally stressing adaptability to national conditions.
The interviewee addresses issues like ‘Challenges in TVET Education – From Advocacy to Implementation’ and highlights ‘Innovative Teaching Methods’, as well as ‘Becoming Effective CVQ Facilitators’.
Offering what Henderson describes as ‘Words of Wisdom’ with ‘valuable advice to educators and policymakers aiming to enhance TVET programs and their impact,’ the regional educator also gave ‘valuable insights and practical advice’ that ‘resonate with educators, students and policymakers,’ or persons simply-curious about vocational education.
The SALCC principal says TVET is necessary for Caribbean education and should be employed more-widely across the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
She also articulates the interconnections between personal skills and phases of growth; and the importance of improving technical skills in changing times, through ever-evolving innovation.
Dr Jameson-Charles maintains it’s a major mistake for Caribbean societies to continue embracing the outmoded colonial approach of classifying children as ‘slow learners’, simply because they may take longer to embrace new skills, therefore being consigned to special ‘caring’ institutions.
She reveals that SALCC recently converted a traditional fuel-powered vehicle into the institution’s first home-made Electric Vehicle (EV), built by students with different levels of adaptation, but working together.
The SALCC principal advocates marrying knowledge and skills with competence and adopting a common regional standard Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) system.
She also explains the differences in levels and pace of adaptation according to personality and experience, especially relating to so-called ‘slow-learners’.
Indeed, almost everyone anywhere knows a student who can build and fix gadgets – from cell phones to computers – or who win regional or international online contests that reveal who they really-are, more-than their end-of-term exam results.
Dr Jameson-Charles highly-recommends that Caribbean teachers today – especially at non-TVET schools – should be trained to avoid adopting the ‘slow learners’ syndrome that effectively consigns students to also grow-up slowly.
The interview also coincided with another announcement by the Education Ministry that should please the principal: its support for a ‘Save Our Boys’ initiative by the Saint Lucia Social Development Fund (SSDF) to promote “increased male participation in mentorship activities” among 120 young men.
The gender-bias of the project – funded by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) – was directly endorsed by Education Minister Shawn Edwards.
The minister points to the nursing profession here, where only 21.6% are males – in a vocation with no gender-barriers, but still largely-considered only for women in societies still only seeing nurses as Nightingales.
TVET and CVQ are tried-and-tested elements that have long positively assisted Caribbean people before they earned their acronyms, proving eternally helpfu to those who, without formal education, studiously applied what they learned growing-up to their life’s work.
Today, however, they’re no longer concepts, but actually available means to all possible ends.