Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Prakash Per­sad is en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly young peo­ple, to pur­sue train­ing in what he de­scribed as “AI-proof” ca­reers, as the world braces for the grow­ing im­pact of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence on the work­force.

Per­sad made the call while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme (YTEPP) Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing sign­ing be­tween the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) and Caribbean Dock­yard En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed. The event took place on Wednes­day at YTEPP’s Wood­ford Lodge, Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about job dis­place­ment due to ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, Per­sad ac­knowl­edged that cer­tain roles, par­tic­u­lar­ly mid­dle-lev­el jobs in­volv­ing rou­tine tasks such as ba­sic re­search and ad­min­is­tra­tive writ­ing, are in­creas­ing­ly vul­ner­a­ble to au­toma­tion.

“World­wide it shows that some peo­ple will lose their jobs,” he said. “Mid­dle-lev­el jobs where AI can take over, for in­stance writ­ing let­ters or do­ing ba­sic re­search, these are ar­eas that are al­ready be­ing im­pact­ed.”

How­ev­er, the Min­is­ter stressed that many ca­reers re­main se­cure, par­tic­u­lar­ly those re­quir­ing hands-on tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise and hu­man judge­ment.

“There are some jobs which are what I like to call AI-proof,” Per­sad stat­ed. “Jobs that re­quire tech­ni­cal skills like plumbers, elec­tri­cians, main­te­nance work­ers, these can­not be re­placed. Even pro­fes­sions like doc­tors may use AI as an as­sis­tant, but they will not be re­placed.”

He used the ex­am­ple of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to il­lus­trate his point, not­ing that while many pro­fes­sion­als were able to work re­mote­ly, es­sen­tial tech­ni­cal work­ers still had to re­port phys­i­cal­ly to car­ry out crit­i­cal tasks.

“How can you fix a toi­let or elec­tri­cal sys­tem from home?” he asked. “These are the kinds of jobs that will al­ways be need­ed.”

Per­sad em­pha­sised that glob­al in­vest­ments in ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing da­ta cen­tres, are si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly dri­ving de­mand for skilled trades such as con­struc­tion work­ers, elec­tri­cians and plumbers—fields of­ten un­der­val­ued in tra­di­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems.

“There are short­ages in these ar­eas,” he said. “Those who think these are low-end jobs are mis­tak­en. These are im­por­tant jobs, and they will sur­vive.”

The Min­is­ter used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vo­cate for a cul­tur­al shift in how so­ci­ety views Tech­ni­cal and Vo­ca­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing (TVET), ar­gu­ing that it should be placed on equal foot­ing with tra­di­tion­al aca­d­e­m­ic path­ways.

“No pro­fes­sion is high­er than the oth­er,” he said. “All roles are im­por­tant in mak­ing the sys­tem func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly.”

He al­so high­light­ed the Min­istry’s push to­wards in­te­grat­ing aca­d­e­m­ic ed­u­ca­tion with skills train­ing, not­ing that both are es­sen­tial for pro­duc­ing a com­pe­tent and adapt­able work­force.

Among the ini­tia­tives out­lined were ex­pand­ed ap­pren­tice­ship pro­grammes, clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween in­dus­try and ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, and the in­tro­duc­tion of mi­cro-cre­den­tial­ing—al­low­ing in­di­vid­u­als to gain qual­i­fi­ca­tions in small­er, flex­i­ble mod­ules while con­tin­u­ing to work.

Per­sad said this ap­proach is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant in ad­dress­ing the coun­try’s NEET pop­u­la­tion—young peo­ple not in ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment or train­ing—which cur­rent­ly stands at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15.8 per­cent.

“We have to meet peo­ple where they are,” he said. “Train­ing in­sti­tu­tions must ac­com­mo­date the needs of stu­dents and in­dus­try, not the oth­er way around.”

Al­so ad­dress­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Bhadase See­ta­hal-Maraj,Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the NCRHA, de­scribed the agree­ment as a crit­i­cal in­vest­ment in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and hu­man cap­i­tal.

Speak­ing on be­half of the Au­thor­i­ty’s board, he said the part­ner­ship with YTEPP rep­re­sents more than a for­mal agree­ment, but a com­mit­ment to build­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and strength­en­ing ca­pac­i­ty with­in the health­care sys­tem.

“Every ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tive is a na­tion­al in­vest­ment in de­vel­op­ing hu­man cap­i­tal, ca­pac­i­ty and ca­pa­bil­i­ty,” he said, not­ing that de­ci­sions made to­day will shape fu­ture ca­reer path­ways and in­flu­ence long-term out­comes.

See­ta­hal-Maraj em­pha­sised that the Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing will fa­cil­i­tate the de­liv­ery of a Pa­tient Care As­sis­tant Lev­el One pro­gramme at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, pro­vid­ing struc­tured, hands-on train­ing for young peo­ple.

“This pro­gramme will equip them with es­sen­tial skills in pa­tient care. More than train­ing, it of­fers ex­po­sure, dis­ci­pline, and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to the na­tion­al health­care sys­tem,” he said.

He added that strength­en­ing health­care goes be­yond in­fra­struc­ture, stress­ing the need for skilled and com­pas­sion­ate per­son­nel to im­prove ser­vice de­liv­ery and pa­tient out­comes.

“Through pro­grammes such as these, we ex­pand our hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty, im­prove the qual­i­ty of ser­vice de­liv­ery, and ul­ti­mate­ly en­hance the pa­tient care ex­pe­ri­ence,” he said.

See­ta­hal-Maraj ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the ini­tia­tive would pro­duce a com­pe­tent work­force and a new gen­er­a­tion of skilled work­ers ready to con­tribute to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“When we in­vest in our peo­ple, we in­vest in our coun­try,” he added.