THE Centre for Continuing Education and Extension Services (CEES) at the College of the Bahamas’ Northern campus held an open house in Freeport last Friday evening to promote the certificate and professional development programmes being offered for adults.

Laterah Munnings, CEES Co-ordinator, said this time they have scheduled some of their programmes to cater to people in the Adventist community.

“We want to cater to everyone in the Grand Bahama community and we have would like for those Adventists to know that some of our certificate programmes have been scheduled from Saturdays to during the week for the most part,” Mrs. Munnings said.

Mrs. Munnings said the upcoming certificate programme in Human Resources is scheduled on Monday and Wednesday. She said other areas they are covering are certificate in project management, certified professional manager, certificate in secretary review, and Autocad. The centre is also offering an accounting course for beginners with Quick Books, ethics and professional responsibility and effective writing skills.

“We are also trying to get certificate in health care administration going, as well as working with the Department of Social Services to get resident caregivers certificate back up and running in Grand Bahama,” Mrs. Munnings said.

Another course that is of great interest, she said, is the pre-school and nursery toddler programmes.

Mrs. Munnings said the community has been asking and requesting for the programme to come back on stream. “We are looking for a large number of interested persons to enrol in those two certificate programmes,” she said.

According to CEES co-ordinators, the schemes are basically geared toward adult learners who want to acquire new skills and who have many years of experience in a field, but no certification.

“There is a number of persons in the community that have been working a number of years in a particular field and who want certification that is aligned with their skill,” she said.

Mrs. Munnings said many of the participants are company sponsored, but there are individuals who are not. “The Centre at this time does not have a benefactor who wants to sponsor any scholarships for the CEES, which is part of the College of the Bahamas, and so we are looking for and hoping that a benefactor will come forward and do that,” she said.

CEES has an enrolment that ranges anywhere from 50 students in a year to about 500 in past enrolments.

“As the economy picks up we hope to see more and more persons come to acquire skills and certification to excel themselves in education,” Mrs. Munnings said.

By Denise Maycock, Tribune Freeport Reporter

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