For years, we have had a national contradiction that we have refused to confront honestly.
Every year, we lament youth unemployment.
Every year, industry complains that it cannot find welders, masons, automotive technicians, plumbers, electricians and agro-processors.
Every year, government announces initiatives to industrialise.
Yet, when Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results are released, thousands of parents and students scramble for Senior High School (SHS) places and actively avoid Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).
The figures tell the story. Even with the massive investment in Free SHS, Ghana still has over 14 per cent youth unemployment, with underemployment far higher.
At the same time, the Ghana Statistical Service and Association of Ghana Industries consistently report skill gaps in critical trades.
We are producing graduates who are looking for jobs, while jobs are looking for skills we are not producing.
TVET is very critical to national development and youth employment.
That statement has become a cliché at every sod-cutting ceremony.
What we have not done is make TVET critical to the Ghanaian family.
Why do parents prefer SHS?
The reasons are not mysterious. First, social stigma.
In many Ghanaian homes, TVET is still seen as education for those who are not academically good — the "those who could not make it" path.
A parent would rather boast that their child is in SHS, even if that child will complete SHS and join the unemployed graduates queue, than say their child is in a technical institute learning to become a world-class instrumentation technician earning three times more.
Second, progression anxiety. Parents fear that choosing TVET closes the door to university.
The academic pathway from TVET to the university was, for a long time, unclear, winding and discriminatory.
An SHS graduate has a straight path.
A TVET graduate had to explain their certificate.
Third, the poor image of TVET institutions themselves. Many technical institutes have, for years, operated with obsolete equipment, dilapidated workshops, demotivated instructors and no linkage to industry.
If we are serious about making TVET drive national development, we must address these three perceptions with concrete, visible actions.
Ghanaian parents are rational. They follow where opportunity is.
We must make the economic case for TVET loud and clear.
A certified welder working with an oil services company earns more than many university graduates in their first five years.
A solar installation entrepreneur with a Level 3 certificate from the Commmision for TVET (CTVET) can employ others within a year.
We need a national campaign that showcases TVET graduates who have built businesses, who are working in Ghana and abroad, and who are excelling.
The government's introduction of Free TVET is a good start, but it is not enough.
We must attach stipends, toolkits and start-up support to TVET completion.
When a young person completes SHS, they go home with a certificate.
When a young person completes TVET, they should go home with a certificate and a toolkit box to start work. That is how Korea, Germany and China made TVET attractive.
The Commission for TVET has done commendable work in creating the National TVET Qualification Framework with levels from Proficiency to Doctor of Technology.
That must now be aggressively communicated.
A JHS graduate must know that they can enter Level 1, move to Level 2, to Diploma, to Higher National Diploma, to Bachelor of Technology, and even to Master of Technology and Doctor of Technology without ever needing to "switch back" to SHS.
When parents see that TVET does not block academic progression but rather offers two pathways — immediate employment and further academic progression — preference will shift.
The Hyundai-KOICA NextGen project launched last week to modernise automotive training in Greater Accra and Volta (refer to page 13), and similar interventions by GIZ, World Bank and government, must be scaled up to all 200+ TVET institutions.
Ghana's future — our 24-Hour Economy, our automotive development policy, our ability to feed ourselves through agro-processing — will not be built by grammar alone. It will be built by hands that are skilled.
We must tell our children the truth: The world does not only need more BA and BSc holders.
The world desperately needs people who can build, fix, design, create and manufacture.
It is time for the Ministry of Education, parents, chiefs, churches and the media to stop paying lip service to TVET and start making it the first choice. For national development, for youth employment, and for the dignity of work, TVET must not remain an alternative. It must become an aspiration.
