Executive Director for Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Dr Peter Anti, has revealed that the government has exhibited a much stronger commitment to the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in recent times.

According to him, government’s commitment is much needed to ensure the survival of TVET. He indicated that the move is not only commendable, but will ensure the proper education of students who enrol.

“… In recent times, the government has shown serious commitment to the TVET education. For the first time, we are having the TVET services as a different setup as compared to the Ghana Education Service, whereby GES is now limited to the primary and secondary education, and the TVET is devoted to technical and vocational education.”
Dr Peter Anti

Further highlighting government’s display of support to TVET, Dr Anti noted that in areas of infrastructure, there has been some improvement, coupled with the new equipment as well.

“… With our idea of transforming the various polytechnics into technical universities, these are investments that I think are an indication that government is committed to ensuring that TVET takes its rightful place in the education system of this country.”
Dr Peter Anti

Addressing challenges of TVET

Commenting on Asantehene, Otumfuor Osei Tutu II’s, concern about loss of human capital due to neglect of technical and vocational education in the country, as Ghana’s education system has failed to fully harness the potential of students due to the over concentration on theoretical education, the IFEST executive director described the statement as interesting.

He explained that as a country, governments have tried in the past to ensure that they have a lot of students pursuing TVET education.

“During the introduction of the Junior High School in our educational system, you’ll see that during those days, students were taught technical skills, vocational skills, and agriculture science. We used to do practical on campus at the various schools. Even at the junior high level, we had instances where schools were having workshops… This translated into our introduction of the 2007 education reform. If you look at that particular reform, that reform was very important for the transformation of Ghana because that reform technically talked about different pathways as the students exit the junior high school system.”
Dr Peter Anti

Dr Anti revealed that there were pathways for technical and vocational education, agriculture as well as apprenticeship. Unfortunately, he noted that government has not been able to do much there and that is why most of us seem to think that the issue about the TVET is more theory…”

Meanwhile, Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, has expressed the need for Ghana to deepen Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to provide hands-on training for the youth to address unemployment.

He stated that TVET offered direct skills and knowledge to help one to become self-employed and create employment for others.

Currently, Mr Baffuor Awuah explained that persons who went through skills training only required start-up capital, but those who passed through the main academic system had to wait to be employed by institutions and organisations, he said.

”Germany has done it with TVET and they have been successful, therefore, if we want to be successful as a country this is the way to go.”
Ignatius Baffuor Awuah

Mr Baffour Awuah explained that skilled work would continue to live with the people because TVET offered sustainable jobs and, therefore, commended the beneficiaries for choosing that path. He advised the youth to be resilient and save towards the growth of their businesses to help make significant gains and expand them.

Speaking at the handing over ceremony of business start-up kits to more than 400 young entrepreneurs in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions, the employment minister stated that through the project, the beneficiaries would be mentored and their activities monitored by the Labour Commission and GIZ to assess their performance, while providing further assistance in terms of coaching until they became matured to be on their own.