Costaatt presented Nalis with the 2012 Costaatt Partnership Award at the college’s graduation ceremony held on November 17, 2012.  

The Costaatt/Nalis partnership, which has spanned almost three decades, continues to support Trinidad and Tobago’s vision of becoming a knowledge-driven society. Working together, these two distinguished institutions “have made a significant contribution to the development of Trinidad and Tobago’s knowledge management capacity through the education and training of a highly competent para-professional workforce.”

In the 1980s, Nalis and the Library Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) developed the Technician’s Diploma programme to train para-professional for library services.  In 2000, the diploma programme was upgraded to an Associate in Applied Science (ASS) in Library and Information Studies. A dedicated team of Nalis professionals, including Pamela Benson, former Executive Director of NALIS, worked to ensure that the curriculum, offered by Costaatt, was closely aligned to industry standards. The internship component of the course, conducted at Nalis libraries, provides a tremendous opportunity for students to acquire hands on training in the area of library and information studies.

Nalis executive and professional staff have taught and continue to teach courses at various Costaatt campuses. They have served on institutional programme advisory committees to ensure the continuing relevance of curricula to workplace needs, and most recently, have worked with Costaatt’s faculty to upgrade the Associate Degree in Library and Information Studies to a Bachelor of Library and Information Science (BLIS) degree.

Referring to the Costaatt/Nalis partnership, the college said, “This is a partnership between higher education and industry which is truly a national model worthy of emulation.”