Education centre herald’s success after first year

| 05/09/2011

(CNS): Officials from the Year 12 programme at Cayman Islands Further Education Centre (CIFEC) are looking for more employers to join what they say has been a successful programme after the completion of its first year. Part of the final compulsory year of schooling for some students involves a Work Experience placement which has helped provide training and employment opportunities for the students. The young people attend work experience for two days a week throughout the school year as a result of the support from local businesses and government departments.

Margaret Jackson, Head of the Careers Service at CIFEC, said the experience offered the students the opportunity to gain a thorough understanding of the responsibility of being employed.

"Invaluable skills such as good communication skills, customer service and learning to use one’s initiative would be very difficult to teach in the classroom," she said. "We are extremely grateful to all the businesses and departments that have supported this initiative. The philosophy is there is no job without experience and no experience comes without a job,” seh added and asked any employers interested in getting involved to contact her.

Following the first full year of the programme at CIFEC many students have been offered the opportunity to stay with their employers on summer internships until moving on to continue their studies, some have also been offered full time positions, scholarships have been awarded and others are continuing with companies on a part time basis.

“We are extremely proud of the first destination success the CIFEC students have achieved’ said Sarah McDougall, a member of the teaching and Career service staff at CIFEC.

Year 12 students followed a variety of BTEC (Business, Training and Enterprise Council) and IMI Qualifications, studying for three days a week at school. These are regarded as being high level vocational qualifications and compliment the work experience programme through helping students to develop job readiness and employability skills especially important in the current economic climate.

Courses planned for the coming school year include subjects such as Creative Media, Business, Leisure and Tourism, Health and Social Care, Child Care, Motor Vehicle and Information Technology.

If you would like to assist by offering work experience placements for our young people please contact    the Career Service Margaret Jackson at 925-5424 careerscayman@gmail.com

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