Technical and vocational education World Bank team wraps up ‘very productive’ visit |19 October 2019

The World Bank delegation who was on a week-long mission in Seychelles to assist in the development of a technical and vocational school, yesterday met the education minister for a final time before their departure.

The aim of the meeting, which was held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, was to brief Minister Jeanne Simeon on the work that has been done by the delegation and the technical school committee during this week.

Also present yesterday was the secretary of state for Finance, Trade, Investment and Economic Planning, Patrick Payet.

The World Bank Task Team leader Dr Xiaoyan Liang and the director general for TVET and Entrepreneurship in the Ministry for Education, Jean Alcindor, both described the week as “very productive”.

The minister was subsequently presented with a new possible name for the technical school: the Seychelles National Technical School (NTS).

The school will take on S4 and S5 students who are seeking a technical and vocational pathway, while the S4 and S5 students who will choose to stay at general secondary schools will be undertaking a more academic pathway.

This hopes to address youth unemployment, the country’s dependence on expatriate workers and will ensure that the technical and vocational sector education is revitalised or even rebranded.

In their presentation, the World Bank experts proposed that the TVET school’s budget should be calculated using the performance based budgeting.

It has also been proposed that the TVET school will provide courses to persons who are already in employment and other outside parties as a form of revenue, and also a means to build capacity and skills in the country.

Minister Simeon and SS Payet were also presented with the proposed management style of the school as well as its curriculum.

It was also affirmed yesterday that the school will most probably become operational as from January 2022.

“Right now, based on the consultations with the department of foreign affairs and also the architects, the school will most realistically be operational by January 2022. And I would like for everybody to use that as a benchmark,” Dr Liang remarked.

“Yes, Seychelles needs such a school. We need to rebrand TVET and change the misconceptions around it and you do not change by talking; you change by showing an image of a TVET school that is well-equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, with top-notch management and staff[…]” Dr Liang asserted.

Also discussed, was the Reimbursable Advisory Services (RAS), which basically means that the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development will have to pay World Bank a certain amount of money for their advisory and technical support.

World Bank has proposed a total sum of US $500,000 for its services; US $250,000 for the technical assistance in the development of a national TVET strategy and another US $250,000 for the technical assistance and capacity building for the establishment of the TVET school.