Guyana to focus on oil and gas opportunities for Guyanese youth

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, (DPI) – Guyana is advancing its transformative development agenda and the ministry of labour’s Board of Industrial Training (BIT) is concentrating on developing an apprenticeship programme with the oil and gas companies to satisfy the requirements of the burgeoning sector.

Labour minister, Joseph Hamilton said the ministry will continue its drive to upskill Guyana’s human resources to meet the demands of the industry.

“We have already started to have conversations with companies in oil and gas. This is to collaborate to do apprenticeship programme with them so that we can send young people into these companies to work and to develop wider skillsets than they have,” he said during a recent interview.

Minister Hamilton noted that welders and fabricators have not received training for the oil and gas sector.

“So, even after BIT would have trained a welder and fabricator, we have to place that person as an apprentice within the oil and gas sector, so that they can upskill and upgrade themselves to function in the oil and gas sector.”

The minister noted that the forklift operator is also a necessary skill for the oil and gas industry.

To facilitate this, the heavy-duty operator training programme was expanded to include forklift operators.

“The fact that we’re focusing and expanding agriculture and food security. We cannot be speaking about doing that and we have inadequate tractor drivers,” he pointed out.

The labour minister also disclosed that the government will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Art Williams & Harry Wendt Aeronautical Engineering School at Ogle.

“Whilst this is an aviation school, because the training, they do is comprehensive, you have many of the oil and gas companies snatching up these young people as they finish.” These persons can transition into other technical areas since it is not difficult for them to do so, minister Hamilton added.