BIT restructured to meet employment demands

The Board of Industrial Training (BIT) has successfully restructured its programmes to help
empower women and girls to meet the local job market said Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton.
Hamilton in a recent interview with the state-owned Department of Public Information (DPI)
said the change has led to partnerships with other government entities offering technical and
vocational (techvoc) programmes.
“We want each other to know what we are doing so that we are not running over each other in a
community because I believe that if any one of the entities is running a programme in a village.
We need to complement it not to set up a similar programme in that village… as I speak to you.
We have over 80 young boys and girls being trained at Kuru Kuru Training College,” Minister
Hamilton disclosed
Lack of cooperation among relevant stakeholders in the past affected the Technical and
Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programmes in a significant way the minister said.
“People were doing their little things in their silos, and that wasn’t getting the type of output that
the nation needed.”
Labour Offices are now stationed strategically nationwide to guarantee trainees get necessary
help in their respective regions.
“We have moved beyond [installing labour officers] where we are now setting up labour offices
so the Board of Industrial Training will be one feature of the labour office. What we are
attempting to do is to have a labour office in all departments and part of the structure will be a
training centre for BIT and we have proceeded in that regard,” he declared.

In the quest, 36 persons have already been trained to function as BIT and Occupational
Safety and Health (OSH), Labour, and Co-operative Society officers, Minister Hamilton
said.