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”.