Stakeholders deliberate on the TVET Toolkit

General News of Monday, April 15, 2019

Source: ghanaiantimes.com.gh

2019-04-15

A one-day workshop on the Toolkit for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as a policy intervention to create jobs for young people in Ghana was completed in Accra on Friday.

The EU has launched the Toolkit as a potential reform of the national policy of TVET institutions on the Ghanaian labor market.

Its theme was "Promoting inclusive and demand-driven vocational education and training" organized by the European Union and other development partners.

Participants came from technical and vocational schools, as well as experts.

Speaking at the workshop, Vice Minister of Education, Ms. Gifty Twum Ampofo, worried about the inability of young people to integrate it on the labor market because of unusable skills after dropping out of school.

She stressed the need to prioritize TVET as a political intervention to transform the country's economy and significantly reduce unemployment.

The deputy minister said the government had developed strategies to expand TVET opportunities at the secondary and tertiary levels to strengthen the links between education and industries.

Ms. Ampofo noted that the policy reform would change the perception of TVET as a lower educational program in schools.

She added that the restructuring of the Ministry of TVET in Ministry of Education was part of the government initiative to reform the sector, adding that the government would facilitate the construction of 20 modern institutions of education and training. TVET across the country and would also modernize TVET institutions.

Head of the EU delegation, Dianna Acconcia, provided EU support to help African countries create and develop jobs through TVET training.

She added that the EU supports the government's program to create TVET jobs, by praising Ghana's Government Employment and Social Protection Program (GESP).

She said that TVET is at the heart of the new EU-Africa Alliance, which will further guide programming partnerships with countries in the years to come.