National Vocational Qualifications have several benefits at the individual organisational and national level.

For the individual, NVQs offer:

• Recognition of job competencies regardless of how they were acquired
• Certification as having met national standards for an occupational role
• A flexible route to becoming qualified; and
• Improved employability and transferability

For Employers, NVQs offer:

• An effective way of developing staff to a nationally recognised standard which results in improved efficiency and quality to customers
• A better guarantee of a job candidate's capability

For Training Providers, NVQs offer:

• An effective way of developing staff to a nationally recognised standard which results in improved efficiency and quality to customers
• A better guarantee of a job candidate's capability

At the national level, NVQs:

• Offer a public declaration of workers' skills which provide assurance of the quality of goods and services produced, thus making the country more competitive
• Provide certification of occupational competence which enhances the attractiveness of the labour force to foreign investors; and
• Offer a transparent system of certification which positions the country to take advantage of opportunities for labour mobility within CARICOM and internationally.

NVQ User Guide

• Our NVQ User Guide for Barbados is now available for download. The NVQ User Guide is in Portable Document Format (PDF). To view PDF documents identified you will need to download the free Acrobat PDF reader software.