Vocational training solution for unemployment - TVET Director-General
The Director-General of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Mawusi Nudekor Awity, has emphasised that technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is the solution to youth unemployment in Ghana.
She said recent evidence suggested that TVET yielded more returns than grammar education in both the secondary and tertiary levels because its focus was on providing work-relevant hands-on skills.
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She said countries with embedded systems of TVET such as Australia and Germany had been successful in maintaining low youth unemployment rates and that Ghana would be no different as it had begun pursuing the same path.
Mrs Awity made the pronouncement at the 40th anniversary and fourth graduation ceremony of the St Mary’s Vocational Training Institute at Asamankese last weekend.
The ceremony was dubbed: “TVET education: The means of reducing unemployment for better economic growth”.
She said for vocational training to impact youth employment outcomes in an era of rapid technological changes and globalisation, TVET institutions needed major transformation.
“This will keep them up-to-date with labour market analysis and skills forecasts to ensure that their services are forward-looking and pertinent,” she stated.
Informal sector
Mrs Awity said skills were an important means to increase incomes and sustain livelihoods for the poor and since more new jobs in developing countries were created in the informal sector, it was crucial that skill training in that sector was also improved.
She told the graduands that they had been empowered enough to take their destiny into their own hands, saying it was the first step towards improving living standards.
“You should not let what you have acquired remain your property only but be prepared to share with other people in your communities,” she stressed.
Gratitude
The Catholic Church established the institute in 1980 with 40 students, two full-time and three part-time instructors.
The supervising High Court Judge of the Ashanti Region, Justice Kofi Akrowiah, expressed gratitude to the Asamankese Traditional Council for providing a large tract of land for the relocation and expansion of the institute, which had hitherto been housed at the Catholic Mission, where it had been since its establishment.
Justice Akrowiah commended the government for making TVET institutions beneficiaries of the free pre-tertiary education policy.
He, however, appealed to the government to provide residential accommodation for the Principal, the Housemistress and Housemaster on the school premises so they could better enforce discipline on campus, particularly after school hours.
He further urged the West Akyem Municipal Assembly to construct an access road from the institute to the main road.
Justice Akrowiah urged the government to make a pronouncement on the role of Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) because of the apparent confusion in respect of PTAs in the wake of the free senior high school policy.
The Catholic Bishop of the Koforidua Diocese, Most Rev. Joseph Afrifa Agyekum, inaugurated some structures the government had constructed for the institute and also presented a citation to Justice Akrowiah for his commitment to the development of the institute.