Film for positive perception on technical, vocational education premiered

Accra, April 13, GNA - Technical and vocational education were on Tuesday given a further boost with the premiering of a film that encourages brilliant pupils to take up vocational and technical courses at post-basic education levels.

"The Other Choice", the 45-minute film, stresses that technical and vocational education should not be seen as for drop-outs but taken very seriously by brilliant students with top grades at the Junior Secondary School (JSS) level.

Written and produced by Professor Martin Owusu of the School of Performing Arts, Legon, the film, a collaboration of the Vocational Training Programme of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) and the Protestant Development Services (EED) of Germany, also advises parents not to push seemingly prestigious programmes on their children. Rather, they must support their children, who have excellent grades at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), and have interest to pursue technical and vocational programmes.

"The Other Choice", which mooted by the Vocational Training for Females Programme of the PCG, showed a father who had initially resisted the wish of his teenage son to enter into a technical school after coming out tops at BECE, in favour of academic subjects in a well-endowed school.

While riding in his car with his two elder sons, who had offered academic subjects up to the university level, the man's car developed what they thought was a mechanical fault.

The three frustrated people tried in vain to diagnose and repair the fault until, a young lady who, with the approval of her parents, had studied electrical engineering and computer science after her basic education arrived on the scene and in no tine rectified the fault, which was electrical.

The young lady having become very acquainted with the man took him to the computer school she had established and other male course-mates, who offered traditionally female programmes, and were doing well in their businesses.

The man at last allowed his teenage son to offer the technical and vocational programmes, and the son was later awarded a prize for his persistence.

Prof. Jophus Anuamuah Mensah, Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, in a comment, decried the low number of professionals in technical and vocational professions and said the economy could not move if it hung only on academic knowledge. He said Technical and Vocational Educational Training (TVET) was the most dynamic and productive sector of the economy, and added that it was gratifying that Government had accepted the recommendation by the Education Review Committee on the TVET system.

A Deputy Minister of Education and Sports, Mr Kwame Amporfo Twumasi said the implementation of the recommendations was beginning this year, and that the implementation would include technical and vocational education.

He said out of about 474 senior secondary schools, only 25 were technical and 29 vocational schools. He said there was an entire region without a technical school, adding that some secondary technical schools only existed in name.

He called on Ghanaians to lend their support to make the promotion of TVET a success.

Frau Dorothy Groth, Economic Attach=E9 of the Germany Embassy in Ghana, underlined the need for investment in girls, stating that the vocational training had to be practice-oriented.

A song, titled "The TVET Song" was also launched at the premiering, which was attended by education experts, former Director-Generals of the Ghana Education Service and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education.