NVTI to train 5,000 unemployed youth
The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) has given a grant of GH¢10 million to the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) to train 5,000 unemployed young men and women free of charge in 10 areas of vocational skills.
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The training, which will start in March this year, will involve dressmaking, plumbing work, welding and fabrication, floral and ballon decorations, general electricals, tiling, aluminium fabrication, hairdressing, computer hardware and masonry.
Period
According to the Director of the NVTI, Mr Stephen Bismark Amponsah, the training, to be held for a period of nine months, will be done in about 400 training centres across the country.
He told journalists in Accra that beginning next month, prospective candidates could go to the NVTI website to register to take part in the programme, adding that aside that, information would been sent to the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies on how candidates could apply to be part of the exercise.
Selection
He said the 10 trade areas were selected based on their demands on the market, pointing out that the uniqueness of the programme was that the beneficiaries would also be trained in entrepreneurship, after which they would be presented with certificates for proficiency.
Mr Amponsah said the entrepreneurship training would be so practical that the local dialects would be used to train the participants. In addition, he said, some of the beneficiaries would be given tools and start-up capitals.
“But it is not going to end there, because we are going to ensure that they set up their businesses and we monitor them from time to time, so that we will build their capacities for them to be successful,” he said.
Strategy
The NVTI, he said, had evolved a strategy so that beneficiaries would not sell the tools they would be given or squander the money they would receive to set up businesses.
“It would not just be the giving of tools or start-ups but we will ensure that they work and we will monitor them,” he said.
Mr Amponsah said the programme was open to all unemployed youth, including graduates from universities, adding that some formal school-based apprenticeship structures and informal master craftsmen who had registered with the NVTI would be used for the training.
He warned that the institute would not take kindly to the situation where master craftsmen would demand money from beneficiaries.
“When we find out all those things, we will deal with those involved. We want Ghanaians to get what is their due. Once the government is willing to support, we have to ensure that the right things are done so that the Ghanaian would benefit,” he said.