‘Give more attention to technical, vocational training’
The Manager of the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) Pilot Training Institute (PTI), Mr Maxwell Kofi Zanu, has suggested that technical and vocational educational training (TVET) should be made an integral part of the education curriculum at all levels of the country’s educational system.
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Mr Zanu made the statement when he spoke on the theme: “Youth Empowerment Through Vocational Training for National Development”, at the graduation of students of the NVTI PTI at Kokomlemle in Accra.
The graduands, numbering 692, were in four batches of students from 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Productive livelihoods
He said the development of TVET was a means to productive livelihoods and social cohesion, so renewed efforts to modernise TVET and ensure its enhanced status and sustainability were necessary.
He also suggested that TVET should place emphasis on the creation of a new social order in which people combined new technologies and scientific approaches with some aspects of the country’s culture that were viable for development.
New order
According to him, it is important to integrate skills development in all facets of education to promote development, and stressed that TVET initiatives were central to human-centred sustainable development meant to alleviate poverty, promote equity, and respond to the new order to transform the society.
Studies, Mr Zanu said, had shown that in Ghana and elsewhere, training and acquisition of skills in both the formal and informal sectors had very little state support, compared to the regular education system.
Three elements
He said the elements of PTI — style, skills and staff — were necessary in empowering NVTI trainees and graduates for national development.
“By style, the trainees are empowered to have a working style; by skills, they are trained to have effective problem-solving and communication skills to challenge the status quo and then by staff, the trainees are equipped with leadership skills and act as catalyst to drive organisational growth,” he said.
Government’s interest
In a message, the Director of the NVTI, Mr Stephen Bismark Amponsah, said the government had taken a bold step in deepening its commitment and interest in the TVET sub-sector by passing the Council for Technical Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) Act.