‘Skills training not for daft students’

The Executive Director of the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI), Mrs Mawusi Nudekor Awity, has called for the due recognition and respect for persons with hands-on skills in the society.

“I am encouraging all of us to be very serious with TVET and I am encouraging all of us to patronise made-in-Ghana goods.

“Let us learn to pay people with trades well because most times when they render services to us ...we just give them anything because we have reduced TVET to nothing and we think they can be treated anyhow?,” she asked.

Graduation

Mrs Awity said this at the 20th graduation ceremony of the Hakies Floral and Catering Institute in Accra during which 25 students graduated.

The event was also held alongside a matriculation ceremony at which 17 fresh students were formally admitted to the institute.

Mrs Awity said skills training was very important as it enabled people with the requisite knowledge of the various trades to set up their own businesses rather than rely on the government for jobs.

Regarding unemployment, she said there were more opportunities through which people could have jobs once they acquired the necessary hands-on skills to be on their own.

“People are always crying that there are no jobs in this country. I believe some people sitting would say they are unemployed but I have a problem with that because Ghana has all the opportunities,” she said.

Reminder

She reminded parents that skills training was not meant for daft people but those who were intelligent.

“When someone does not do well in school, we always push them to go and learn a trade. But I want to tell you that that era has passed. In those trade areas, you need to do calculations and measurement, so let us tell our children right from primary school to be interested in technical vocational education and training (TVET)”.

She advised students in senior high schools and tertiary institutions to try and learn some skills while they were in school, and that they could learn those during vacation when they were at home.

“Even if you are in SHS or university spend your holidays by going to learn some skills. The talk now is about TVET that you can use to your own advantage,” she said.

After having inspected the products displayed by the graduands, she said she was highly impressed with what she had seen, adding that the finishing of the products was so good.

The products do not look like they were done by people who have freshly graduated from schools but people who have been operating in the industry for many years.

Proprietress

The Proprietress of the Hakies Floral and Catering Institute, Ms Adwoa Harrison-Affull, said the institute had been in existence since 2002 and had had students from various backgrounds, including the universities, banks, graduate teachers, medical doctors, nurses and junior and senior high school graduates.

She mentioned the programmes run by the institute to be; designing and sugar craft with British and Australian standards and technique, pastry and dessert making, advanced cookery, balloon, ribbon, flower craft and event decorations, millinery and bead making.

“The private institutions, which proved by far, to be the largest vocational skills and training in the country are hardly catered for. We want the government to help with the resourcing of the private institutions and those in the informal sector by way of capacity building, curricular development, sponsorship of students, mentoring systems and general best practices in TVET,” she said.

Ms Harrison-Affull called for establishment of a National TVET Forum, made up of players from government, labour, industry, training institutions, tertiary institutions, students and civil society organisations to champion the cause of TVET to contribute effectively to national development.