JDF personnel to benefit from MoU on accreditation

The Ministries of Education and National Security on December 13, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will provide for the accreditation and or certification of courses undertaken by personnel of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).
Under the MoU, the work to be executed by the Ministry of Education involves assisting the JDF in the necessary actions to achieve accreditation and or certification of all training done by JDF personnel.
In addition, the JDF will assist the Ministry with small scale construction services in the form of work and or consultation commensurate in value to the mutually agreed value of the specialist services provided by the Ministry. The MoU is expected to last for three years.
Speaking at the signing ceremony at Jamaica House, Minister of Education, Hon. Andrew Holness said significant benefits will be derived from the co-operation as the training will place the soldier in an employable position after he leaves the army.
“The army has been training for many years and indeed the society already knows that anyone who is trained by the army is well trained. But the problem lies in the fact that societies and markets have developed and become very sophisticated and they want to be able to gauge and judge and draw equivalences to a trained army engineer in the army and what he is when he leaves military life and becomes a civilian; those issues have to be resolved by virtue of a qualifications framework,” Mr. Holness said.
In his remarks, Minister of National Security, Senator Dwight Nelson said accreditation is a means of ensuring that members of the army are highly skilled and certified workers.
Mr. Nelson congratulated the Ministry of Education for having an interest in the education and certification of JDF personnel, as a part of its overall strategy to educate the nation, and encouraged other institutions to move in this direction of ensuring that staff are certified and accredited in areas which are deemed beneficial.
For his part, Chief of Defence Staff, JDF, Major General Antony Anderson noted that this is a major achievement for the military, as the skills that are acquired by its members will now be certified.