Government and other donor partners in collaboration with Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) are strategizing on mechanisms to support capacity building through the skills development fund and the national apprenticeship programme to make Technical Vocational Educational Training, (TVET) more attractive to the country’s youth.
This programme would help provide an alternative means for skills development, wealth creation and poverty reduction in the country.
Mr. Daniel Baffour –Awuah, Executive Director, COTVET told B&FT in Accra, after addressing a day’s workshop aimed at reviewing the result of the piloting programme of the Competent Based Training, (CBT) and discuss the Way Forward for implementation in other institutions.
He explained that as part of the COTVET’s vision to institutionalize quality CBT-TVET system in the country, it has set up three standing committees to develop a TVET qualification framework to determine training standards and competencies and also to provide registration and accreditation services.
A Skills Development Fund has been established to provide a challenge fund to ensure sustainable TVET funding.
COTVET in collaboration with JICA and ECOWAS, held an institutional capacity building programme for selected Curriculum Development Specialist in TVET training to better place training providers to effectively deliver training in CBT.
He identified the informal sector as a major area of concern in the TVET System in the country.
Available statistics indicate that about 55 percent of graduates from Junior High Schools are unable to enter into Senior High School. Out of this, only seven percent continue in the formal TVET, while majority go into apprenticeship in various trade areas in the formal sector.
The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) has released GH¢ 3,000,000, to the COTVET to support apprenticeship training in the informal sector.
It is also expected that more than 15,000 Junior High School graduates who could not pursue further education would benefit from the training which started in the 2010/2011 academic year.
The Minister for Education, Betty Mould Iddrisu reiterated government’s support for an apprenticeship programme, hence the training of 5000 basic school leavers in CBT.
She expressed gratitude to industries that provided work place training for CBT Students and called on other firms to emulate this step.
Mr. Kunihiro Yamauchi,Resident Representative, Japan International Corporation (JICA), revealed that the CBT pilot project has been extended to December 2011, instead of March to enable institutions that have planned to expand the demand of the driven CBT method to other certificate levels which is currently not targeted in the piloting.
“The CBT method is expected to provide students with the skills and working attitudes to persue productivity and competitiveness and also develop the human resource base for national economic growth, contribute to job creation, industrial development and poverty reduction,” he said.
JICA has so far provided a grant of US $3.4 million towards the successful development of the technical and vocational education training system.
Mr. Stephen Turkson, a Competent Based Training, expert described TVET, as a master key to national development and that it has been used as a poverty alleviation tool in many countries and often for meeting conflicting economic and social goals.
Mr. Turkson said the TVET system is under going reform as recommended by the Government 2004 White Paper on education and that this can only be attained by changing and modifying certain old educational policies that are slowing down recommendations made on the White Paper.
“There is a need to alter old policies to conform to the agenda, unless new policies are made to support the reform, then, there is a need to forget about it”. Mr. Turkson said.
He urged stakeholders in the educational sector to reconsider the inclusion of the recruitment policy which seeks to select a master degree holder as head of a technical institution instead of a competency based individual.
Mr. Turkson advocated for a separate entity to administer Technical Vocational Institutions rather than the Education Ministry, since budget support for vocational education is always not enough and most often diverted for secondary education.
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