TVET policy interventions will create jobs, boost economy - MP assures
Ghana will in the next few years benefit immensely from the government’s remarkable policy interventions that have transformed Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), the New Patriotic Party(NPP) Member of Parliament for Kwesimintsim, Dr Prince Hamid Armah, has said.
Contributing to a statement on the floor of Parliament, he said the jobs and skills project currently being implemented by the government would ensure the training of master craftsmen and women, as well as apprentices who would be supported financially to create jobs and to boost the economy.
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Little attention to TVET
Dr Armah expressed concern that even though TVET had the potential to transform Ghana’s economy, governments over the years had paid little attention to the sector.
“Mr Speaker, if you look at our school system, there are two pathways—the grammar type and the TVET sector. Yet we have focused attention over the years on the grammar type at the expense of TVET.
“There has been serious and significant investment in the grammar type without commensurate investment in the TVET,” he observed.
Resourcing TVET
Dr Armah, who is also the Vice Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, noted that the resplendent attires worn by all the parliamentarians were the handiwork of products of TVET and a lot could be achieved by them if they were given the needed support.
He said given the “pervasive influence” of TVET on the economy and its potential to address unemployment issues, it was important to strengthen the TVET service provision, something he said the government had started doing.
“Quite remarkably, the NPP government, under the leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has since 2017 initiated several policy interventions to address these problems,” he said, citing the passage of the Pre-tertiary Education Act, which he said would now streamline all activities of pre-tertiary TVET institutions and bring them under the Ministry of Education.
He added that “this will also help ensure standardisation of all TVET education and certification”.
Pathways
Dr Armah, who is also the immediate former Director-General of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), cited the apparent confusion in the pathways for TVET as a major disincentive for students.
“Unlike the grammar type students who have a clearer pathway right from primary, senior high to tertiary, that of TVET is a little chequered and cumbersome.
“There is the need for us to align the current national vocational training qualification to the national qualification training framework for the grammar type so that there can be a direct link, so that if one decides to move from stenography into the grammar type school for example, you know exactly where the person can start from,” he stated.
He was happy the Education Ministry had initiated the process of developing a national qualification process to fill in the gaps.
