‘Enhance technical, vocational education to create employment’
Stakeholders of Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) have called on the government to accelerate efforts at enhancing the potential of the sector as one of the key solutions to unemployment in Ghana.
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The stakeholders, including the Network of Technical Vocational Education and Training (NETTVET), the National Association of Beauticians and Hairdressers Association and the National Tailors and Dressmakers Association noted that although governments were made some efforts to enhance TVET, much remained to be done.
They made the call at a roundtable discussion on how to enhance TVET to make it more attractive for the youth to create more jobs.
Organised by the Vocational Training for Females Programme (VTF), a Presbyterian non-governmental organisation on the theme: “Maximising the gains made for effective delivery of TVET in Ghana,” the objectives of the meeting were to dialogue on how to strengthen the linkage among all the different formal and informal associations of TVET.
The platform was also used to launch a 10-year strategic plan for the Vocational Training for Females programme and outdoor the programme’s website.
Solution to unemployment
In her welcome remarks, the Director of Vocational Training of Female Programme, Ms Linda Agyei, said the importance of TVET could not be over-emphasised at a time when the country was facing serious unemployment challenges.
Ms Agyei said TVET was vital for socio-economic transformation and, therefore, required proper management and serious infrastructural development.
“ Currently, most of the TVET institutions are facing equipment and human resource challenges which are affecting the output of this very promising sector,” she said.
She was of the opinion that TVET had the potential to create enough jobs for the youth and equip them with the required skills to enable them to become self-employed after school.
Make TVET attractive
Ms Agyei appealed to the government to make TVET more attractive to make it a preferred choice of education.
She, therefore, underscored the need for a robust and well-functioning TVET system that was able to address the challenges of the society such as unemployment, lack of entrepreneurship, low standards of products, and social vices.
The chairperson for the meeting, Mrs Leticia Osarfo-Addo, also underscored the need for a critical consideration of TVET in the national discourse of economic development.
“We need to be aware of the critical skills that we need to help achieve the development status all stakeholders desire,” he said.
She opined that national development could only be achieved by exploiting the potential of both the academics and the TVET and recommended that the government invest more into TVET, particularly, by building infrastructure
The President of the National Association of Beauticians and Hairdressers, Mrs Joyce Lamptey, commended the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) for effectively integrating the informal vocational and technical training sector into its activities and for facilitating capacity building for the informal TVET sector.