Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah — Minister for Employment and Labour Relations

Technical, vocational skills devt to bridge unemployment gap

Jessica Acheampong Business News Dec - 04 - 2018 , 07:51

The Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Ignatius Baffour Awuah, has said the government will continue to invest in skills training and development in the country.

This, he said, was to help bridge the widening gap between the requirement of the job market and the competencies which were developed in the educational institutions.

Speaking at ‘educataGhana 2018,’Ghana’s first international education exhibition and idea factory in Accra, he said “there is a huge gap between that which industry requires and that which is produced by many of our institutions.”

“That gap is as a result of the fact that industry is looking for people who have the skills, training and are ready for the job and yet many of the jobseekers are people who do not have those skills,” he said.

He further explained that business owners were often reluctant to engage such people since they had to put in extra effort to train them, and the government was ,therefore, going to help address this by continued investment in skills training and development in the country.

“Government ,therefore, welcomes investors who seek to pitch camp here and collaborate with local institutions in fostering skills training in the country.

We gladly welcome collaboration and partnership to strengthen our local capacity,” he said.

Reforms

Mr Baffour Awuah noted that in the course of reorganising TVET in Ghana, the German World TVET system was being considered to enable it to fully implement competency based training.

He said in June 2017, the Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh led a team of stakeholders to undertake a one-week study tour and to learn about policies, programmes and strategies and practices used in implementing the German world TVET system.

“It was a very successful tour and as Ghana looks to mainstreaming TVET, we will continue to liaise with Germany and learn from it to ensure improved skill development and industrialisation of its economy.”

“We will continue to invest in vocation, technical skills education and training because we believe it is a catalyst of change. Let me emphasise that TVET education, is the best ever reform we can ever have,” he said.