An Education Needs Assessment of CARIFORUM Firms

2020). Highly demanded medical device production roles will include maintenance and

facilities mechanics, engineering and automatization technicians, quality technicians,

materials and logistics technicians and administrative and support technicians. In contrast,

manufacturing industry supervisors, mechanical engineering technicians and electronic

and engineering technicians will be needed across the island’s manufacturing sector

(USAID 2020).

•

Tourism

Belize’s 2018 and 2019 studies on Measuring Curricula Mism atch for Food Processing and

Tourism Sectors, Jamaica’s 2017 Labour Market Sector Study, and Suriname’s 2018

National Training Authority Sector Study outlined skills gaps within their respective

tourism sectors. Table 7 provides an overview of these gaps. Soft skills, although cross

cutting, are particularly important for the tourism sector, as highlighted in Table 7.

Table 7: Skills Gaps in the Tourism Sector

Skills Coverage & Demand Across Tourism-specific Occupations • Skills coverage lacking for hotel managers in management areas including budgeting for the establishment”; overseeing accounting and purchasing activities and supervising security arrangements and garden and property maintenance. • Skills coverage lacking for cleaning and housekeeping in cleaning and tiding (particularly kitchen cleaning) stock-taking, supervising and purchasing (particularly controlling, storing, and issuing supplies). • Skills coverage lacking for cooks in planning and supervising and coordinating the work of kitchen helps and operating large volume cooking equipment. • Skills training programmes for restaurant workers require improvements in areas like negotiation, customer service, health and safety compliance, record keeping, organizing and planning/supervision. • Skills demand for domestic housekeepers include (i) preparing and cooking meals, setting, and cleaning tables and serving food and beverages; (ii) taking care of household pets and plants, receiving visitors, answering telephones, delivering messages and shopping for groceries; and (iii) controlling storage and issue supplies. • Relevant skills for bartenders, waiters and tour guides appear to be adequately met with room for improvement. Other in demand tourism-specific skills identified by respondents were events planning, organizing, budgeting, marketing, and safety/security protocol.

Belize

Health & Wellness Tourism Value Chain •

Demand for technical tertiary training programs in sports studies, sports tourism management, food science and technology and culinary management.

Jamaica

Wider Tourism Value Chain •

Business skills training is needed in areas like marketing, business administration and sales techniques.

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