Labour Ministry, OAS discuss strengthening coordination between education, labour

Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton recently attended a two-day intersectoral hemispheric meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, themed “Towards a Stronger Coordination Between Education and Labour in the Americas.”
The meeting was hosted through a partnership between the Government of Argentina and the Organisation of American States (OAS).
In addition to Guyana, the other 34 participating countries reportedly included Bahamas, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States and others.

“Coordination between labour and education is paramount and necessary for good labour market outcomes and economic and social progress of our countries and people,” Minister Hamilton said during the meeting.
This meeting offered representatives from the Labour and Education Ministries, employers’ and workers’ organisations across the participating countries as well as key international organisations an opportunity to exchange experiences and identify policy and programmatic recommendations to strengthen the coordination between the two Ministries in question.
Sessions within the two-day meeting specifically looked at concrete experiences of coordination between Labour and Education Ministries in the Region, and addressed the National Qualifications Frameworks as a concrete tool for education-labour coordination.
Established in many countries, the National Qualifications Frameworks seek to improve access to higher and different levels of education and training and to facilitate educational and labour market mobility.
The meeting also allowed participants to separate into subgroups and deliberate on the previous sessions, pondering questions like what the main successes and lessons learned from the actions of coordination between the two Ministries are, and what lessons can be synthesised to further advance the National Qualifications Frameworks.
Participants also considered public policy recommendations that can be made to promote and improve coordination between the Labour and Education Ministries.