St John Bosco’s vocational shift pays off

Nine years after transitioning from a boys’ home to a vocational training institution, the St John Bosco Vocational Training Centre in Hatfield, Manchester is celebrating its success in equipping young people with practical skills to improve their lives.

The institution was transformed in 2017 after operating for 57 years as the St John Bosco Boys’ Home, shifting its focus to training young people between the ages of 16 and 25.

A member of the Mercy Education System of the Americas, which serves several schools in Jamaica, including Convent of Mercy Academy (Alpha), Alpha Institute (formerly Alpha Boys’ School), Alpha Primary and Jessie Ripoll Primary, St John Bosco operates as a registered independent school in partnership with the HEART/NSTA Trust and City & Guilds.

Last Friday, September 25, the centre participated in HEART’s Community Training Intervention Day in Ocho Rios, attracting attention with its display and sale of agricultural plants and greenhouse technology.

“We offer a variety of skills – greenhouse technology, crop production, commercial food prep, nail technology, culinary arts, hairdressing, barbering, and butchery,” Kelly-Ann Nevers-Haynes, the centre’s greenhouse instructor, told The Gleaner.

“In addition to those skills, we do have a butchering course; we grow our own animals, as in pigs and broiler birds, and we have a processing plant that we do our own by-products from the pigs,” she added.

According to the centre’s website, the institution offers Level 2 diplomas in barbering, food preparation and culinary arts, and food and beverage services, as well as a Level 3 diploma in culinary arts and supervision.

City & Guilds certification is also offered in mathematics, English, information technology, and several vocational areas.

Additionally, the centre delivers the Sixth-Form Pathways Programme, a two-year initiative of the Ministry of Education.

“We currently have over 200 students in our institution from communities in and around Manchester such as Christiana, Mile Gully, and Spaldings in Clarendon. We even have students coming from as far away as St Elizabeth,” Nevers-Haynes said.

She stressed that the courses are offered free of cost, with students required to pay only a $5,000 registration fee.

The centre is now seeking to increase enrollment in the Sixth-Form Pathways Programme.

Beyond training, St John Bosco operates several business ventures, including Bosco Meats, which sells chicken and pork products raised on the centre’s farm and processed at its facility; Bosco Catering; and The Falls Restaurant and Bar.

Bosco Meats supplies supermarkets in Manchester as well as Kingston.

carl.gilchrist@gleanerjm.com