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Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh (third right) interacting with Prof. Sylvester Archio, (right) Vice Chancellor of the Accra Technical Univeristy and Country Representative of the association
Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh (third right) interacting with Prof. Sylvester Archio, (right) Vice Chancellor of the Accra Technical Univeristy and Country Representative of the association

Focus more on technical, vocational programmes - Education Minister tells technical universities

All technical universities in the country will have to shift from the current 60 per cent technical and vocational programmes to 90 per cent.

This is to enable them to stay focused and concentrate on the training of the needed manpower to accelerate development.

Courtesy call

“We will prefer you to do 90 per cent technical and vocational programmes than to do 60 per cent technical and vocational programmes and 40 per cent of other courses, which other universities are doing,” the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, told a delegation of the executive of the Commonwealth Association of Technical Universities and Polytechnics of Africa.

The group was at the ministry to pay a courtesy call on him and to introduce the association to the minister and to also outline to him its ambition and vision.

The meeting was also an opportunity to outline activities leading to the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the association which comes off next year.

Dr Prempeh said even though it was in the statutory books of the technical universities that they could do 60 per cent technical and vocational programmes and 40 per cent of other programmes, government was not enthused about that and was, therefore, determined to ensure that they focused more on their core mandate of equipping their products with the relevant skills needed in the country.

Retooling

Dr Prempeh told the delegation that the government was retooling all the technical and vocational institutions, as well as the technical universities, to demonstrate its commitment to technical and vocational training.

He said it seemed Africa had lost its focus for not giving the relevant prominence to technical and vocational education.

He said Africa had gotten to a stage that “if we have to go a notch higher, we must empower our youth with the necessary skills.”

Emphasis on technical education

Dr Prempeh explained that “ our government currently has decided that technical and vocational education is where its emphasis is going to be on.

“So, the first thing the government has done is to say all technical and vocational institutions will be centred in the Ministry of Education,” he explained.

He said bringing all under the ministry from the over 16 ministries, which were offering some form of skills development, would enable the ministry to look at standardisation, resource mobilisation, certification, regulation and also to let it become the number one choice of the youth.

Dr Prempeh said a bill was ready to be submitted to Cabinet within the next few weeks to get the approval of the technical and vocational educational training (TVET) strategy of the country and to Parliament for adoption.

He hinted that government would prefer that managers of the technical universities should come from a technical background.

Conversion relevant

The Secretary-General of the association, Dr Olubunmi Owoso, noted that the conversion of the polytechnics to technical universities was very important to make TVET attractive to the youth.

He said currently, many students preferred going to the traditional universities to attain a degree instead of going to the TVET institutions.

“This is a reality. So we believe the transformation of technical colleges that have the capability and polytechnics to universities of technology is very important in making them attractive to our youth,” he explained.

He said it was important to strengthen the technical universities to be really involved in the relevant applied research and innovations, which were critical in the development of their respective countries.

“We have resolved to embark on the harmonisation of competent-based training in member countries,” he stated.

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