Amend GETFund law to cater for TVET

The Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Antwi-Bosiako Sekyere, has called for the amendment of the GETFund Law to enable technical and vocational institutions in the country to access financial support from the fund.

He said until that law was reformed, the fund would not be able to cater for technical and vocational schools, most of which were in “dilapidated states currently.”

“Many technical and vocational schools are currently in dilapidated states and this has undermined their capacity to even attract students from the communities they are located,” Mr Sekyere stated.

He was speaking at the opening of a four-day training workshop for heads of departments, heads of institutions and staff of the national vocational training centres across the country.

The event was also aimed at building the managerial skills of the participants to help turn technical and vocational training centres into profit-making centres to generate revenues to manage them.

The deputy minister stated that his recent nation-wide tour of Integrated Community Training Centres for Employable Skills across the country revealed the appalling conditions of those institutions, with many having dilapidated structures and facilities.

Dilapidated state of institutions

“The state of dilapidation at these institutions has, to a large extent, crippled their capacity to attract students from the very communities they operate, much less to offer demand-driven employable skills to the people,” he stated.

Mr Sekyere blamed the situation on the lack of adequate financial and logistical support for those centres.

The GETFund, he said, was currently allocated to the Ministry of Education, which used the fund purely for public institutions such as senior high schools, universities and polytechnics that were under its control.

He stated that other institutions that were under the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, mainly technical and vocational training institutions, did not benefit from the GETFund.

“The situation is such that until the law is amended, the fund cannot extend any financial assistance to our technical and vocation schools,” he stated.

Solution

To address the challenge, Mr Sekyere stated that his outfit had initiated talks with the Ministry of Education to “chart a process of amending the GETFund Law to consider our training centres.”

With regard to employment, Mr Sekyere stated that many Ghanaians today complained of lack of employment opportunities when many trained artisans from the neighbouring countries like Togo were coming into the country to take up tilling, plumbing and masonry jobs.

“It is time we gave the needed support to our technical and vocational institutions to give more demand-driven knowledge and skills to our people,” he added.

The Executive Director of the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI), Mr Stephen D. Amponsah, called for even playing field and equal opportunities for all educational institutions and students in the country,  especially in the area of giving out government assistance to institutions.

“There is so much our technical and vocational institutions can do in empowering our youth with employable skills, not only to allow them to become self-employed but also meet the demands of the job market” he stated.