Grants scheme for technical institutions
The Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) has launched a grants scheme that will enable technical institutions in the country to access grants to boost their production units.
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Under the Institutional Production Units (IPU) Grants Scheme, 10 selected technical institutions will be given the opportunity to compete for investment grants to revitalise and/or set up production units in order to strengthen their technical and productive capacity and promote innovation.
Objectives
The objectives of the grants are to build the capacity of the production units of the institutions so as to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in production, link the production; units to market demand to ensure relevance and increased capacity to generate funds internally for sustainability; and create avenues for work placements and jobs in local communities where production units are located.
Launch of initiative
Launching the initiative, the Executive Director of COTVET, Mr Sebastian Deh, said the initiative was part of the Development of Skills for Industry Project (DSIP), aimed at supporting the development of high quality middle level technical and vocational skills needed in the Ghanaian economy.
According to him, the initiative “fits perfectly into COTVET’s mandate/mission of overseeing a technical and vocational education and training system that produces a globally competitive workforce through quality-oriented and demand-driven learning for national development.”
Skills gap
“It is indeed gratifying to note that this two-year project, which is coming on the heels of several other interventions being introduced by COTVET, is taking off at a time when the government is putting in so much efforts to bridge the skills gap between education/training institutions and industry.
“The IPU concept thus provides institutions with the requisite link between theory and practice on one hand and industry and markets on the other. The IPU grants will thus transform the current teaching and learning-focused production units normally referred to as ‘workshops’ into vibrant market-oriented businesses capable of responding to market demand, thereby becoming self-sustaining skills training units,” he said.
Mr Deh said successful institutions would receive grants of up to GH¢300,000 for their production activities, adding that one major benefit envisioned under the grant scheme was the ability of beneficiary institutions to increase their internally generated funds (IGF) to help reduce their over-reliance on government for subvention.
Strong justification
He said the IPU grants “are competitive and only production units who make a strong justification in their proposals, including demonstration of sound financial management systems as part of their school management structures and systems are likely to benefit.”
Project Support Unit
The Project Co-ordinator and Head of the COTVET-Project Support Unit, Mr Matthew Dally, said: “The grants are meant for transforming the current teaching and learning-focused production units which we normally refer to as ‘workshops’ into vibrant market-oriented businesses capable of producing to meet market demand, thereby becoming self-sustaining while remaining efficient and relevant skills training units.”
Giant step
The IPU Grants Scheme, he said, was a giant step by the Government of Ghana to provide a facelift to technical and vocational education and training, by reforming the institutional focus and quality of delivery of COTVET in Ghana.