Government to refurbish NVTIs - Deputy Education Minister

The Deputy Minister of Education, Gifty Twum Ampofo, has disclosed government's plans to improve the quality of vocational and technical education in the country by refurbishing the thirty-four (34) National Vocational Training Institutes (NVTIs) nationwide.

Delivering her speech at a symposium organized by the Sparkassenstiftung für Internationale Kooperation (Savings Bank Foundation for International Cooperation) at the Accra Marriott Hotel, Madam Barbara Ayisi Asher revealed that loans are being secured by government to renovate the training facilities in the NVTIs all over the nation.

This move, she asserted, would add value to the country's vocational and technical resources.

"We have secured loans [that], starting from next month, contractors are going to be on all the 34 NVTIs to ensure that their existing facilities are refurbished", she said.

She added that,"buildings, equipment, workshops and training of instructors as well as vehicles [have been acquired] to ensure that things are done and NTVI becomes lucrative".

Themed "Qualified Experts at the Excellence for the Ghanaian Financial Industry - Dualized Vocational Education and Training as Proven Practice from Germany", the symposium sought to help strengthen the capacity of the cooperative credit unions and other microfinance institutions through demand-driven, affordable and attractive training courses for board members and managers of such institutions.

Commenting on the two-day programme, Bianca Jänecke, Senior Consultant for the Training Project Ghana said that program achieved its set target of building the capacities of stakeholders in the microfinance sector as well as the vocation education sector.

She expressed gratitude to the partners of the program for making it a success and revealed that her outfit will in the coming year roll out a teaching program.

“We have held a two-day symposium with our two main partners. The main focus of this is a capacity building for the finance sector. So we are working in two parallel work groups working in different fields. We are working on common facility centres for each of the trainees. We are working on dualized vocational education and training for the financial sector. We are also working on e-learning.