A five-year partnership aimed at transforming education and workforce development in Barbados was cemented on Thursday between the National Transformation Initiative (NTI), the Barbados Institute of Management and Productivity (BIMAP) and American for-profit online learning platform Coursera.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formalises a relationship that has already helped thousands of Barbadians access online training and certification opportunities since the NTI and Coursera partnership was launched on May 1, 2021.
Director of the NTI, Dr Allyson Leacock, said BIMAP was the first institution to embrace the initiative by integrating Coursera content into its programmes.
NTI Director Dr Allyson Leacock. (Photo Credit: Lourianne Graham/Barbados TODAY)
“The numbers tell the story, from those 1 600 certificates in 2021 to over 60 000 today. More than 201 000 enrollments, over 51 000 learners on our own national platform integrated with Coursera and through our dive initiative, our customized plan for a 40-hour digital training protocol, we are going to work with all the other entities in this country to help build a public service that is learning to lead rather than lag.”
Dr Leacock stressed that productivity remains central to the partnership and Barbados’ development.
“For a nation our size, productivity is not a spreadsheet, productivity is sovereignty. It is how a small island with no oil, no acreage to spare, still pays its own way in the world and holds its head up while doing it and for the worker, productivity is dignity. It is the difference between a family that is just getting by and a family that is getting ahead.
“That’s why this work, at the very heart of Mission Barbados, matters. Our work sits squarely inside the missions of worker empowerment and enfranchisement and the mission of digital transformation, because a fully digital Barbados is not one where technology is clever, it is one where no one, and I mean no one, is left behind.”
The NTI head said one of the key lessons learnt over the past five years was that certification alone was not enough.
“For too long, the learning journey of many Barbadian workers has ended at the certificate. And simply stopped short of the workplace, short of the wage, short of my own business, short of the point. So the classroom and the boardroom have been speaking different languages, and the NTI is proud to broker a conversation.”
Dr Leacock said the new agreement seeks to bridge that divide by connecting education directly with workplace opportunities.
“That is the gap that this partnership closes. NTI and Coursera bring the world-class content, but BIMAP brings the business community, the employers, the shop owners, the real machines, and the real problems to solve. Together, we complete the loop from learner to earner, from skill to job, from a course completed to a contribution made as an active citizen of beautiful Barbados.”
She also announced three pilot initiatives to be completed within 90 days.
“We begin with some pilots that we’ve discussed as a team and I want to see the faces behind them. The pilots are on paper, but it’s the people behind them. The coconut vendor who will turn a roadside trade into a value chain linked to our Barbados in the equipment program, the supervisor on a Beijing shop floor who will learn to lead a team and not just manage a shift and hopefully from September, workers trained in hazardous waste disposal and industrial safety on real equipment thanks to BIMAP so that Barbadians come home safely at the end of every day.”
The initiative would also explore practical applications of Artificial Intelligence to improve productivity and solve real-world challenges, she said.
BIMAP executive trustee Andrea Burgess said the institute would contribute employer relationships, facilitators, practical training experience and regional expertise to the partnership.
BIMAP Executive Trustee Andrea Burgess. (Photo Credit: Lourianne Graham/Barbados TODAY)
“We remain ready to be a key partner of this delivery engine for national transformation and indeed regional transformation, perhaps international transformation, so we bring that productivity focus. We want to help Barbadian learners through NTI, Coursera, and BIMAP to move from learning to earning.”
Burgess explained that Coursera content would increasingly become part of BIMAP’s programmes.
“One of the most practical benefits of this partnership is that Coursera Learning will not have to sit separately from the BIMAP programmes. Over time, more and more selected Coursera courses and learning assets will be integrated directly into BIMAP’s course content so that learners benefit from both global expertise and BMA’s local facilitation, assessment, and workplace application. This means that a Coursera course may be used in different ways.
“It may form a part of a BA course. It may be recognised as a prior preparation for entry into a BIMAP programme in some cases, it may serve as a prerequisite, allowing a learner to come into a BIMAP course better prepared. In other cases where the learning outcomes are aligned, it may help learners shave some time off a program because they have already completed relevant foundational work.”
Coursera higher education special advisor Jennifer Campbell said accessibility remains at the heart of the platform’s mission.
“What I am seeing in the trainings with the faculty, what I am hearing in the words of those individuals that went out to the website and chose that course and took a chance, is their lives being transformed and that’s what this is all about. Every single one in Barbados right now has access to this, every single person, and it is our honour at Coursera to be a part of that.”
Campbell also pledged to keep the platform’s content current and relevant:
“We will commit to you is that we will continue to keep our content fresh. We will continue to use labour, data statistics, what is the emerging technologies around the world, and we will make sure that it is available and ready for you.”
(LG)
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