Warn­ing that too many young men are falling be­hind in ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment and train­ing, Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing, Prakash Per­sad, yes­ter­day de­scribed the is­sue as a grow­ing so­cial cri­sis.

He said the Gov­ern­ment’s new Tech­ni­cal and Vo­ca­tion­al Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing (TVET) In­dus­try Con­nec­tion Labs and In­cen­tive Pro­gramme must di­rect­ly tar­get strug­gling young males across Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean.

“Young males are not do­ing well. They are the ones who seem to be in some de­gree of dis­tress,” Per­sad said at the launch of the re­gion­al ini­tia­tive at the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme’s (YTEPP) Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters.