Stakeholders deliberate on TVET tool box

A day’s workshop to deliberate on the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) tool box as a policy intervention to create jobs for the youth in Ghana ended in Accra on Friday.

The Tool box was launched by the EU as a potential national policy reform for TVET institutions on the Ghanaian labour market.

It was on the theme “Promoting Demand-Driven and Inclusive Vocational Education and Training” and organised by the European Union and other development partners.

Participants were drawn from technical and vocational schools, as well as experts.

Speaking at the workshop, a Deputy Minister of Education, Mrs Gifty Twum Ampofo expressed concern about the inability of the youth to fit into the labour market due to unemployable skills when they dropped out of school.

She expressed the need to prioritise TVET as a policy intervention to transform the nation’s economy and drastically reduce unemployment.

The deputy minister said the government had come up with strategies in expanding TVET opportunities in secondary and tertiary levels in order to strengthen the linkages between education and industries.

Mrs Ampofo noted that the policy reform was to change the perception of TVET as an inferior educational programme among schools.

She said the restructure of Ministry of TVET into the Ministry of Education was part of the government’s initiative to reform the sector adding that the government would facilitate the construction of 20 modern TVET institutions across the country and also upgrade the TVET institutions.

The Head of EU delegation, Madam Dianna Acconcia pledged the EU’s support in helping African countries in job creation and development through the TVET training.

She added that the EU supported the government’s agenda of creating jobs in areas of TVET lauding the government’s Ghana Employment and Social Protection Programme (GESP).

She said the TVET was the core of the new EU Africa Alliance which would further guide in programming partnerships with the countries in coming years.