Govt to realign all aspects of TVET — Education Minister

The government has planned to realign all aspects of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET’s) provision under the Ministry of Education in order to strengthen, improve and revitalise the skills development sector of the country’s economy.

The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, made this known when he addressed the 13th Congregation of the Kumasi Technical University.

He said the government was determined to ensure a paradigm shift in skills training and manpower development.

‘“This will be done by boosting the support for technical education in the entire country and treating it as a vital component of the education and skills training agenda,’’ he indicated.

A total of 3,056 students graduated with Bachelor of Technology, Higher National Diploma (HND) and Professional Diploma respectively. The graduates included 133 First Class students.

TVET Council

Dr Opoku Prempeh said structural reforms, including a TVET Service, a TVET Council and a division dedicated to technical and vocational education, would be established with its own director general.

He revealed that the government had reformed the Ministry of Education and there was now a deputy minister solely for technical and vocational education.

Other key interventions and reforms, he said, included  the revision of the curriculum for TVET institutions, construction of 20 modern TVET institutions across the country and upgrading of some 35 National and Vocational Training Institutes across the country, as well as upgrading colleges of education with speciality in technology.

Lecturers

The interim Vice Chancellor (VC) of the university, Professor Asiamah Yeboah,  said two lecturers had been trained at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and were now certified educators in hospitality.

He promised that the training arrangement would be extended to lecturers in other courses in the university’s Hospitality department.

He added that the university had also entered into agreement with the Canadian government to equip students with business-operating ideas.

The aim of this partnership, he said, was to train the youth to acquire practical skills in entrepreneurship through business incubation. The programme, the VC indicated, would run for a two-year period.

Appeal to the government

Professor Yeboah urged the government to review the working conditions of staff of technical universities.

He indicated that the universities were losing teaching staff at a fast rate to the traditional universities whose conditions of service were better than what pertained in technical universities.

He also appealed to the National Accreditation Board to speed up the process of granting accreditation to the proposed four-year Bachelor’s degree programmes so that prospective students may begin to apply.