NVTI to focus on employee well-being programme
The National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) is to make employees well-being programme an aspect of its curriculum to train students across the country, to ensure that beneficiaries of the programme would assist their employers to develop strategic plans towards their well-being and safety issues.
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Speaking at the opening of a day’s workshop on employee well-being at the NVTI Pilot Training Institute in Accra, the Director of NVTI, Mr Stephen Bismark Amponsah, said it was important for those working in both the formal and informal sectors, to understand what employee well-being was.
He said that was necessary because when they were working with their colleagues and someone was under stress, they would appreciate the need to help that person so that the best could be secured for him or her.
Partnership
The programme was organised by the NVTI in partnership with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), to sensitise employees and employers to how to manage employees and productivity.
Mr Amponsah said the NVTI had been working with GIZ since 2011, on various projects, including the pharmaceutical technology (pharmatech) programme, aimed at, among other things, training people as technicians in laboratories in the pharmaceutical industry.
Productivity
Mr Amponsah noted that Ghana could not be left out on issues related to employee well-being, pointing out that, “These are things we have to take seriously so that productivity in the end would not suffer. It should be a key aspect of employer-employee relationship in industry. It should not just be profit-minded in industry”.
The acting Commissioner for Testing at the NVTI, Mr Christian Agorba, said the employee well-being programme had become a unique selling point of the GIZ, adding that the concept was in high demand in Ghana and beyond.
“Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) schools are entry points to reach large parts of the young people with health promotion and financial literacy. Being healthier will enhance their ability to learn,” he said.
In a related development, Mr Amponsah has asked Institutional Management Committees (IMCs) of the NVTIs not to frustrate heads of those institutions with undue interference, reports Shirley Asiedu-Addo, Biriwa.
He said the IMCs must appreciate the limits of their authority in order not to be seen to be usurping the role of the managers of the institutions.
Mr Amponsah made the statement when he inaugurated a 12-member IMC for the Biriwa National Vocational Training and Rehabilitation Institute at Biriwa in the Central Region.
Committee’s term
The reconstituted committee, which is chaired by Dr John Daniel Otoo, Chief Executive Officer of Capital O2 Natural Health Company Limited, has a three-year term.
Other members of the committee include Mr Amos Assifuah, the institute’s Trade Union Congress representative; Mr Samuel Kwashie Amegbor, the institute’s manager, as secretary; Mrs Erskine Sekyiba, representing the PTA, and Rev. Asante Bordoh, Trades Association representative.
The rest are Mr Isaac Kingsley Donkor, representing the District Assembly; Mr Ofori Kwansah, Labour Office; Mr Joseph Bunyan, the District Directorate of Education; Mr Adu Gyamfi Marfo, Alumni
Representative; Ms Juliana Nkrumah representing the NVTI, and Madam Rita Gyening, recorder.
Mr Amponsah said while the IMC was expected to support the management of the institution to execute viable projects, “it should not be seen to involve itself in procurements and business transactions either with the institute or on behalf of the institute.”
He called on the IMC to work with the PTA to gain the confidence of trainees and parents.
Bus for the school
He described as unfortunate the failed attempt to purchase a bus for the school and urged the IMC to use all legal means to recover all the money involved in the botched bus transaction.
The Manager of the institute, Mr Amegbor, said the challenges hindering the purchase of the bus had impacted on the image of the out-going IMC and called on the new IMC to be extra vigilant in making decisions.
He expressed worry over the encroachment of the institute’s lands and the use of obsolete equipment at the institute and called for help to address these challenges.