Although the CARICOM Skills Certificate regime pre-dates the formal inauguration of the CSME (Skills Certificates have been available since 1997, while the CSME was only formally instituted in 2005 following provisional application of the CSME protocols in 2001) the number of Skills Certificates issued to qualifying CARICOM nationals has only really taken off since the CSME was instituted. Between 1997 and 2005 only nine Member States had issued certificates of Recognition of Skills on a relatively small scale. Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Guyana have issued the bulk of these certificates. By September 2010 approximately 10,000 Skills Certificates had been issued by the 12 member states with the available data on free movement indicating that more than 6,000 of these skills certificates having been issued between 2006 and 2008. At an address to the graduates of the 48th Convocation of the University of Guyana on 8 November 2014, CARICOM's Secretary General, Irwin La Rocque, revealed that up to November 2014 a total of 14,000 Skills Certificates had been issued and he urged the graduates to apply for their own Skills Certificates now that they were eligible.