Training Program

    The continuing development of the plantation and its future harvest will require a significant investment in manpower and training. The change from the traditional methods used to log the natural forest where the trees are dispersed and of high value to harvesting in the plantation where the trees are small and of relatively low value but where the scale is vast, will require a new approach, new skills and a very large workforce. When harvesting for the pulpmill begins, in the latter part of 2009, more than 6,500 workers (up by 5,000 on current levels) including operators for more than 1,600 items of heavy equipment and other plant will be needed. GP's Training Department is designing, developing, and transferring leading edge knowledge and skills to ensure that there is a multi-skilled workforce with the competencies necessary to meet the challenges of the future.

     The programme has the following components;

• Institutional Training Programme will provide assistance with tertiary level education and professional training to develop the more than four hundred graduate managers that will be required.
  
• Vocational Training Programme will run more than seventy skills-based, vocational training courses and produce over 7000 accreditations recognised by the Forestry Department Sarawak.
  
• Community Development Support Programmes will develop commercial and life skills for resident communities that will, amongst other things, help residents to find employment in the Project.
  
• Youth Development Training Programme is an initiative targeting the more than 200 high school "drop outs" produced annually and unemployed youths resident within the Project area. This will provide these people with life and work skills that will prepare them for employment.
  
• Trade Apprentice Scheme is a programme aimed at providing the technical trade skills that will be needed for plantation harvesting and heavy equipment maintenance and support.