Ghana to be world class centre for technical, vocational education

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has re-affirmed the government’s commitment to make Ghana a world class centre for skills development and the leading country in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) delivery in Africa.

He said the government was bringing all public TVET institutions in the country under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Education to streamline their curriculum and improve the coordination of their training.

“We want to emphasise the meaning of TVET and redeem the misconceptions that technical and vocational education is considered and characterised only by less endowed people”, the President said.

The President was speaking at the centenary anniversary of the Asuansi Technical Institute in the Central Region last Saturday.

The anniversary was on the theme: “Hundred Years of Technical Education in Ghana; Successes, Challenges and the Way Forward.”

President Akufo- Addo said the government was putting policies in place that would enhance the education of citizens to drive industrialisation and growth.

Strategic Plan

The President stated that a five-year strategic plan that would evolve into setting up of a TVET service, a TVET council and a dedicated division of the education service with its own Director General was in the offing.

He also noted that the government was tackling the perennial infrastructural problems of the TVET sector adding that work would soon start fully on the construction of 20 modern TVET institutions in various areas of the country.

“We are also upgrading 35 national and vocational training institutes across the country and upgrading colleges of education that specialise in technology. There is underway a major revision of the curricular of TVET schools to make them relevant to the needs of our changing economy”, he added.

Technical schools

Commenting on the state of technical and vocational schools in the country, the President said most technical schools had to cope with inadequate facilities where teachers and students had to put up with a lot of difficulties.

“We call them technical schools and yet they do not have laboratories and workshops and the students do not have the opportunity to do the practical component of the courses they take”, he said.

“They take courses in technical drawing, building construction, clothing and textile, applied electricity, among others, without workshops,” the President observed.

The President inaugurated the newly constructed administration block, Information Communication Technology block and the dining hall of the school and cut sod for the construction of an auditorium.

He also gave an assurance that work would soon begin on the seven-kilometre road from Abakrampa to the school.

COTVET

The Executive Director of the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Dr Fred Asamoah, underscored the need for industries to collaborate with the technical schools.

The Principal of the Asuansi Technical Institute, Mr Joseph Quayson Forson, said three ongoing Ghana Education Trust fund (GETfund) projects, which were the girls and boys dormitories, and a six-unit classroom block, had come to a halt, leading to indiscipline among the students since most of them stayed in hostels outside the school premises.