The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, yesterday launched the Ghana Technical and Vocational Education and Training Service (Ghana TVET Service) in Accra.
The TVET Service would facelift and boost the mainstream technical and vocational education training in the country.
He said TVET was the key catalyst that would stir up job creation for the teeming youth, “The transformation and technical education is a tool to develop the youth and directly engage them in gainful employment”.
The Vice President commended the President for his visionary leadership in making the TVET service a reality, adding that “The evidence is clear that human capacity and resources put into productive skills”.
“As a people, we need to remind ourselves that the young people of our country are among the more gifted and talented globally, however, the onus lies on us to provide the high school students the necessary vocational and technical skills necessary for the socio-economic transformation of the country,” he said.
Dr Bawumia said the government had embarked on several reforms to re-position TVET education to produce a critical mass of highly skilled youth to accelerate socio-economic transformation of the country.
The Vice President said the government was committed to making Ghana’s TVET one of the best in sub-Saharan Africa, adding “as part of implementing the TVET agenda, government is establishing the first ever second cycle TVET Applied Technology High School across the country”.
He said the programme would be designed as a career-base critical education which integrates career and technical education with rigorous academic call and industry participation for demand yield.
Dr Bawumia said it would also benchmark against international best practices and standards, adding that Applied Technology High School would build specific alliances with communities, industries, development partners and the government to ensure that it is responsive to the national needs.
He said all TVET institutions which were now captured under the TVET Service were included in the next academic year of computerised school selection and placement system by Senior High School graduates.
The Vice President called on parents to appreciate and consider (TVET) when selecting high schools for their wards. “This is a service that gives our wards direct skills after school.”
Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Senior Presidential Advisor, said technical education was the fore-runner of all education which would maximise skills development among the youth for national development.
“Let us all embrace TVET which would sharpen our skills for entrepreneurship, and the job creation agenda we need to move beyond the “I want a job mentality,” he said.
Mr Daniel Krull, German Ambassador to Ghana, commended government for his interest in TVET and said TVET played a major role in the development of Germany, therefore, critical attention to TVET would develop the country.
Executive Director for the TVET Service, Mrs Mawusi Nudekor Awity, said there was the need to give a new face to TVET in the country, therefore, reigniting the passion of young men and women to embrace entrepreneurship.
“TVET is the first point of call to education in Ghana, the crux of the birth of this service was to deal with the fragmentation and lack of clear vision for TVET,” she said.
According to her, 139 new TVET schools have been migrated onto the Computerised School Selection and Placement System, adding that successful candidates have now been given a bigger opportunity to see their TVET dreams come true.
“We have organised community sensitisations and stakeholder meetings to encourage more young people to choose TVET schools, and our Head Office is receiving a massive facelift to meet the changing demands of the time,” she said.
BY AGNES OPOKU SARPONG &
ELLIOT YEMOH TETTEH
