TVET agenda must succeed

The focus of this government since it took office in 2017 has been to use technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a catalyst to accelerate its industrialisation agenda.

Consequently, a number of far-reaching interventions have been made to actualise this desire under the new educational reforms which brought about the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023).

Sections 42 and 43 of Act 1023 and sections 80, 81 and 84 of Act 1049 gave birth to the Commission of TVET (CTVET) as the regulatory body of all TVET activities in the educational space, both pre-tertiary and tertiary.

The CTVET, under the director-generalship of Dr Fred Kyei Asamoah, complements the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) in the tertiary education space, while the CTVET is solely responsible for the pre-tertiary space.

It is within these powers vested in the CTVET that it gave all already existing training institutions and centres, both public and private, the directive to register with the commission before June 30, 2022, while centres and institutions that are to be newly established must register with the commission before commencement of business.

The directive is to give the commission the opportunity to properly oversee and supervise the activities of those centres and institutions to ensure standards in their activities.

The Daily Graphic believes the move by the CTVET is in the right direction to ensure that all the centres and institutions operate under its guide and with best practices for the acceleration of our industrial revolution.

We believe such a step will encourage more students to develop interest in pursuing TVET, instead of the over-reliance on the grammar school type of education.

Reports that only 10 per cent of students are currently pursuing TVET are very unfortunate and can defeat all the efforts and investments being made by the government.

The Daily Graphic thinks this is unacceptable and must not be allowed to continue if, really, as a country, we have to leapfrog into the industrialised space.

It is a fact that the Asian Tigers are where they are now, courtesy priority on TVET, and that is the best practice Ghana can emulate.

It is in that regard that we applaud the government for launching the service wing of TVET, known as the TVET Service (TVETS) under Section 58 of Act 1049.

We expect that with the TVETS fully coming on board, it should work closely with its regulator, the CTVET, to help the government’s move to get the needed human capital to fit into the industrialisation drive.

The Daily Graphic is excited that the government has added 139 TVET schools, in addition to the already existing 47, to the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), making a total of 186 schools that will now benefit from the free SHS policy.

We are happy that these and many other interventions are being rolled out in this direction and wish to urge the government to continue to look out for other attractive packages that can entice students into TVET.

The upgrading of all the polytechnics to technical universities is also meant to enable students in TVET to also obtain first and second degrees.

We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect to get different results.