Stu­dents of the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) can look for­ward to more in­tern­ship and train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.

This fol­lows the sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) be­tween UWI and the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) to col­lab­o­rate in train­ing, hu­man re­source de­vel­op­ment, process im­prove­ment, re­search and de­vel­op­ment, and oth­er ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est.

Dr Ter­ry Mo­hammed, Deputy Dean (Out­reach) Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (FST), be­lieves the part­ner­ship can con­tribute to the eco­nom­ic vi­bran­cy of the coun­try.

“As the pe­tro­le­um sec­tor con­tin­ues to shrink, we en­vi­sion that the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor will be­come the dri­ving force for eco­nom­ic growth in the medi­um to long term.

“Hav­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate re­sources and tech­nolo­gies avail­able will ben­e­fit tremen­dous­ly in pro­vid­ing our in­dus­tries with the com­pet­i­tive edge need­ed to com­pete glob­al­ly. UWI in­tends to in­ten­si­fy its role as a part­ner in this growth,” he said.

The MoU is ex­pect­ed to en­hance stake­hold­er col­lab­o­ra­tion, pro­vide an im­proved stu­dent ex­pe­ri­ence, and in­crease knowl­edge ex­change to op­ti­mise growth and de­vel­op­ment in the sec­tor.

Mo­hammed added that the MoU was con­ceived to strength­en con­nec­tions with stake­hold­ers and for­mal­ly in­cor­po­rate them in­to the cur­ricu­lum de­vel­op­ment process.

It will al­low TTMA mem­bers to share their knowl­edge with stu­dents to help in their de­vel­op­ment of di­verse work­place-ready skill sets.

Rel­e­vant course out­lines and skills de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes will be shared with TTMA to pro­mote align­ment to spe­cif­ic in­dus­try re­quire­ments.

The MoU will al­so pro­vide a di­rect link be­tween UWI and TTMA mem­bers for col­lab­o­ra­tion on in­dus­try spe­cif­ic needs and pro­vide in­dus­try-spe­cif­ic ad­vi­so­ry sup­port and tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise to TTMA.

The TTMA will pro­vide in­tern­ship and train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to stu­dents through its mem­ber­ship when­ev­er pos­si­ble.

TTMA pres­i­dent Tri­cia Coos­al be­lieves close align­ment be­tween the two or­gan­i­sa­tions is key to ig­nit­ing in­ter­est and ex­pos­ing stu­dents to the op­por­tu­ni­ties which ex­ist in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor.