Stop child labour in our secondary schools

The IADB has advised the Education Ministry to remove adult-oriented trade skills training from Forms 4 and 5. Cabinet has since approved that vocational training be replaced with a single general education subject that will give children the broadest possible knowledge of all work sectors, processes and issues relevant to the national economy. After completing this subject, trade skills training may be taken at the post-secondary 16 plus level. Students will be at an age to legally participate in apprenticeship programmes according to the Apprenticeship Act. The Ministry of Education, however, seems to have ignored this cabinet directive and is engaging 15 to 16-year-olds in short-sighted, archaic specialised trade skills training under the pretense that they are making the children ‘‘employable.’’ Children are involved in menial labour-intensive, minimum-wage earning skills such as sewing clothes, baking bread and planting crops. I am shocked to find out that they are even going to put these young children on building construction sites as helpers as part of this training.

The integrity of the CVQ itself is questionable, as it will not be recognised by the UK and other countries because it cannot meet stringent international accreditation standards set for worker qualifications.

Which employer is going to hire these ‘employable’ 15 or 16-year-olds with their ‘rubber stamped’ qualifications to work in his factory or construction site? He will surely be in contravention of the OSHA as well as numerous child labour laws.

JOHN DALY

Port-of-Spain