SITUNESCOUNEVOCmeeting2019 Sit confirmed as Unesco-Unevoc partner |20 August 2019

Mr Lima Junior presents the acknowledgement certificate to Mr Barbe

The Seychelles Institute of Technology (Sit) has been confirmed as an official partner of Unesco-Unevoc i-hubs (skills for innovation hubs).

The Unevoc international i-hubs project by Unevoc is aimed at engaging students to be innovative thus to create an impact in the community.

It was the project officer of Unevoc, Wilson Lima Junior, who presented the acknowledgement certificate to confirm Sit as the Unesco-Unevoc partner to the director of Sit, Hubert Barbe, during a high-level meeting which took place yesterday morning at the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development (MEHRD) between representatives of Unesco-Unevoc and other high officials from the ministry to kick-start Sit as a Unevoc partner.

The meeting was also to discuss prior to the assessment of Sit’s innovative tools in place, which was granted with a €20,000 Unesco-Unevoc grant to improve and to provide equitable, inclusive and quality education and also to promote lifelong learning for sustainable development for the benefit of the students and the community at large.

Present at the meeting were Dr Linda Barallon, the principal secretary for Tertiary Education and Human Resource Development; Peter Greenwood from Unesco-Unevoc; Louis Aquilina from Malta Institute of Art, Science & Technology (MCAST); Wenming Yang and Qianmin Lin from Shenzen Polytecthnic and other senior officials from the ministry.

Unevoc has recognised Sit as one of the world’s 10 innovative technical and vocational educational and training institutions selected from a network of more than 200 institutions worldwide, which are part of the Unesco-Unevoc, to participate in an innovation hub (i-hub) pilot project aimed at getting students to be more innovative thus to create a career path that will benefit the community.

Mr Barbe said the international i-hub initiative, the first phase of which will end by March 2020, is engaging students to be more innovative and in partnership with various local stakeholders, the institution has implemented some innovative projects such as water harvesting through installing water tanks at various homes and the construction of a water catchment at Val D’Andorre, using aggregates to hold back the water, among others.

He further said that with such innovations Sit has been seen by Unesco-Unevoc to have the potential for further innovations in future.

Sit has received a grant of €20,000 by installments to implement innovative projects.

Mr Barbe noted that Sit has set up a research and innovation committee to boost innovation with the aim of developing four innovative projects, with the involvement of the students by 2023.

He said that in an effort to bring down the cost of utilities, Sit has a greening project in hand which is to install water tanks around the campus for use in the toilets among other purposes.

Part of the mode of the i-hub project also includes peer reviewers and Mr Lima Junior said that was why the representatives from MCAST in Malta and from the Shenzen Polytechnic in China were invited as peer reviewers to help identify gaps and other relevant points in Sit’s innovative programmes.

He noted that they were also here to foster interaction and learning, through knowledge and experience sharing based on innovations activities done or happening at their respective institutions.

The meeting will be followed by a five-day workshop until Friday this week where the main goal is to assess and to test Sit’s innovative framework being co-developed with Unesco-Unevoc in relation with our TVET through the best practices and through addressing the gaps.

The information gathered will be later shared with other TVET institutions in the world.

Unesco-Unevoc, which forms part of the United Nations, is an international centre which specialises in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). Its main goal is to foster the development of TVET around the world through developing policies and practices concerning education for the world of work and skills development for employability and citizenship, to achieve: access for all; high quality, relevant and effective programmes and learning opportunities throughout life.

Mr Lima Junior said that based on the innovative way they provide service to students and also in the community as a whole, Unevoc has identified ten innovative training institutions around the world, of which Sit is among the chosen three in Africa.

Mr Lima Junior said that these chosen institutions have accepted the challenge of testing and co-developing innovation frameworks that will allow other TVET institutions to follow in their foot paths.

Sit is one among the largest professional centres in Seychelles with more than 250 full-time and part-time students following courses in more than 16 programmes on offer.