Background of Polytechnics Mauritius – RODRIGUES
Background of Polytechnics Mauritius
Polytechnics Mauritius (PML) is a government owned private institution established in 2017. Operating under the aegis of the Ministry of Education, Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research (MoEHRTESR), Mauritius, PML is entrusted with a unique responsibility to enable human capital development at mid-management level in priority fields of knowledge and skills as identified by the government. The objective of PML is to provide the labor market with upskilled, reskilled and future skilled persons who are Diploma holders of high quality and who with the acquired skills would spearhead the development of the country into a knowledge-based and skills-driven economy.
PML courses are industry-focused and focus on the needs of the country in the existing and developing areas of the economy. Mauritius has as of today 4 campuses and have since 2021 opened up its campus in Rodrigues.
Rodrigues Campus
The vision of PML Rodrigues was launched further to the cabinet decision of 28th of May 2021 with the approval to set up a new campus at Citron Donis in Rodrigues. This vision steered to reality with a soft launch of operations since August / September 2021 with the kickstart of courses at Antoinette Prudence Human Resource Center, Malabar and the ICT Centre for Excellence, Port Mathurin at Citron Donis.
Having at heart the development of education in Rodrigues, the courses that were chosen to be delivered to Rodrigues were further to different meetings with Rodrigues stakeholders and also a response to the needs of the changing economy of Rodrigues. The Port, the Airport the IT sector are some of the island development sectors and the launch of the courses were hence tailormade to ensure that competence was developed to be in line with the need of the emerging needs and to match the vision of the Government with the new projects.
The launch was spread out with the following courses:
Diploma in Cybersecurity
Diploma in Interactive & Digital Media
Diploma in Leisure Management
Diploma in Industrial Logistics
All the diplomas are internationally awarded programs that would enable Rodriguans to consider further education top up after this first phase.
Rodrigues campus has as of today a total of 106 students across the four different clusters.
Ensuring the holistic development of the student through PolyCORE and PolyCAS
At Polytechnics Mauritius, we run a series of soft skills workshops spread out throughout the two years of the Diploma programmes that are meant to pull, tug and stretch the students. From workshops centered on ‘Learning to say No’ to ‘Grooming and Etiquette’; from ‘Introducing Oneself Properly’ to ‘Networking for Success’; from ‘Making an Impromptu Presentation’ to ‘Delivering an Elevator Pitch’; from ‘Cultural Awareness’ to ‘attitude over and above aptitude’.
PolyCORE lies at the heart of the educational and training philosophy at PML as the outer core to the 4Ps – Practice-based Immersion, Project-based Learning, Portfolio and Peer to Peer Learning. It combines soft skills, language building and internal exposure and in its entirety aims to forge character and instill resilience and grit. The format of delivery is always changing but remains very practice-oriented focused on role plays, debates, presentations, group work and sharing of anecdotal evidence.
The PolyCORE is the signature mark of Polytechnics Mauritius and a journey at our institution will no doubt lead to a transformational experience.
The PolyCAS is a platform for our students to complete an equivalent of 4% of their academic programme hours towards Creativity, Action and Service. This is in line with forging our PolyIdentity that prone an inside-out transformation. We expect the PolyCAS to progressively transform into a purely student-led initiative within the oversight framework of the Student Affairs cluster.
PolyCAS comprises of: CREATIVITY, ACTION,SERVICE
Education in Rodrigues since its start has been on a roller coaster with the fundamental Polytechnics education holistic approach to education as defined above. Industry visits which is a primary turnaround for all students have set the tone and orientation for Rodrigues students before having them formally sit in a class and start the academic part.
Students have had the opportunity to indulge in Industry visits namely at CEB, Oxenham, Central Administration & MBC Rodrigues.
Various guest speakers have contributed to make our approach feasible in Rodrigues and we’ve had talks from Radisson Blu, Francois Leguat Conservatory and others
The vision of Polytechnics Mauritius englobes education at large in Rodrigues and is not restricted to full time and to youth only. We believe in setting up a sustainable education trend that will up-level not only the education sphere but impact the socio-economic level as well. Further to this, we have deemed it important to launch the short course on Soft Skills.
SOFT SKILLS
This programme is being funded by the Commission of Training, Rodrigues and aimed at providing training for 60 staff working with the Commission. Training will be run in 2 batches of 30 participants. This programme has been crafted after consultation with concerned Stakeholders to ensure that the content proposed are aligned with their needs and work environment.
This focus will focus around the following tagline; TEAM- Together Effective Achieving More.
Objective of This Programme
Soft skills empower employees to collaborate and work together in order to collectively meet the organization’s goals and objectives. In turn, this leads to improve efficiency and heightened productivity. This Soft Skills programme is not a “life-changing” but is definitely going to contribute in making a difference in you as an individual and as a working person. This programme should allow you to:
- Think differently, creatively and critically
- Improve your communication skills thus allowing you to express your thoughts and ideas clearly and directly and in an ethical way.
- Set personal goals while building your confidence
- Embrace others’ ideas and work as a team thus helping you in managing conflict
- Understand the importance of treating other team members with courtesy and consideration all the time.
- Come out of your comfort zone and do something differently
- Improve your interpersonal skills
- Identify areas of improvement while reflecting on your experience
List of Skilling Areas:
While there is a common consensus in regards to the importance of soft skills, there is no one definitive list of generic skills. The Skilling Areas which will be addressed in this programme have been defined following meeting with the concerned authority and are as follows:
- Self-Discovery
- Adopting the Right Attitude
- Managing Oneself
- Managing tasks and workloads
- Professional Ethics and Etiquettes
- Communication Skills
- Competency Management
- Leadership and Teamwork
- From unhappy to happy
- Cognitive Flexibility
CONCLUSION
Setting up in Rodrigues FOR Rodrigues is our blunt pledge. We believe in crafting skills in Rodriguans that will enable not only growth but the building up of careers. A holistic yet sustainable education in Rodrigues.
