HEART opens new centre of excellence on journey to greater heights
Published:Thursday | March 28, 2024 | 12:10 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
According to Dr Cheryl McLaughlin, deputy managing director of the National Training and Programmes Division of the HEART/NSTA Trust, there’s no longer any justification for Jamaicans to view the Trust as an organisation whose sole purpose is to provide skills training.
McLaughlin said this is as in addition to benefiting from the wide range of courses being offered, students will be able to fully unleash their innovative minds along the avenues of engineering, research, and design by utilising the recently opened centre of excellence (COE) at the Trust’s National Tool and Engineering Institute (NTEI) at 7 Ashenheim Road in Kingston.
“For years, as a child growing up in Jamaica, we’ve known HEART to be a skills-training organisation, a place that the students go when they are unable to pass the CXC (Caribbean Examinations Council) [examinations]. That has been the narrative out there to the point [that] today, a lot of our young students, they are unwilling to come to this noble institution,” she lamented on Tuesday while addressing the phase two opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the COE, which features two cutting-edge labs — an autonomous robotics lab and an opto-electronics lab.
“But as I sat there and I’m hearing centre of excellence, I’m hearing STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering Arts, and Mathematics) labs, I’m hearing robotics and aerial robotics and opto-electronics. It makes me feel extraordinarily proud. Proud that we have had the audacity to change the narrative. We were able to resist what society has been telling us all along about the HEART/NSTA Trust, [and] we have been able to resist the limits that have been placed on this institution,” McLaughlin stated, noting the Trust’s accomplishments and how far it had come in expanding its offerings.
Charlene Mohan, the regional director for Region One, who provided an overview of the project, said the goal of this newly established centre was to improve on student training and skill development.
This is being fostered through research and development, micro-representation of industries, international standard training equipment, upskilling of teachers and industry practitioners, dual-certification opportunities, and infrastructure development.
“Phase One saw the establishment of our renewable energy STEAM lab, and that was in 2022-2023 ... . This year, the 2023-2024 year, we are building on that success,” she said.
Phase Two introduces two cutting edge labs: an autonomous mobile robotics lab and a mechanical engineering computer-aided design (CAD) lab.
“Looking ahead at Phase Three, our ambition is to soar even higher. We aim to outfit our institution with state-of-the-art technologies including computer numeric controls and instrumentation labs, and facilitate skills inclusive of the electro-hydraulics, pneumatics, and motor controls,” Mohan continued.
By doing this, she added, the Trust would be able to further improve its capacity to train individuals and effectively support Jamaica’s workforce by providing trainees with the tools they need to succeed in an ever-shifting technological environment.
Additionally, a COE has been established at the Trust’s southwest Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) Institute, Derrick Rochester campus in Junction, St Elizabeth, which is geared at manufacturing and engineering.
“Our overarching goal is clear: to push the boundaries of innovation and align our skills, trainees, and institutions to global standards. By embracing new technologies and practices, we can ensure that our centre of excellence remains at the forefront of industrial advancement,” she said.
McLaughlin further noted that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has really been “knocking on Jamaica’s door” and that the Trust was also responsible for helping to prepare citizens for the rewards as well as the inevitable challenges that will come with this change.
The 4IR is the theory that humankind’s way of living, working, and relating to one another will undergo a fundamental shift as a result of a combination of technological advancements.
McLaughlin continued that the NTEI’s COE was “a catalyst for creativity”, committed to nurturing aspiring engineers, and fostering exploration in emerging fields and would serve as an incubator for inventive minds.
“These meticulously crafted spaces ... marks a significant leap forward in establishing NTEI COE as a premier institution driving excellence in engineering and technological progress,” she added.