Time to Shift Focus of Our Education System to TVET - - Osafo-Maafo

By Alberto Mario Noretti

Ho — SENIOR Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, has reminded technical universities to stick to their mandate to produce graduates with the needed hands-on skills to transform the country's economy and build the needed human capital base for set national development programmes.

"Over the years, we have not done well to shake off the colonial model of education which placed so much emphasis on grammar and clerical skills rather than the technical and vocational sets of competence which we need to drive growth," he said.

Mr Osafo-Maafo was speaking at the opening of the maiden Applied Research Conference of Technical Universities and Polytechnics in Ghana, on Monday.

The two-day event had the theme: "Positioning Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) for Employability and Sustainable Development."

More than 200 representatives from the eight technical universities, and the Wa and Bolgatanga Polytechnics participated in the conference.

Mr Osafo-Maafo, a seasoned mechanical engineer, insisted that the long term solution to the unemployment situation in the country was to shift the focus of the education system decisively to TVET which had suffered great neglect over the years in terms of financing and unjustifiable pay differentials, often to the detriment of people with competence in TVET.

He said that the government, knowing the importance of TVET, took steps to review and restructure the system and trigger a rapid transformation in 2017.

Subsequent to that, the Senior Minister said, there was now an ongoing development of 20 TVET institutions across the country which would be furnished with modern and up-to-date installations to train skilled personnel to become globally competitive in the sector.

"There has been a comprehensive skill-gap analysis in close collaboration with the Association of Ghana Industries, to develop the required skills for the curriculum training content to meet real life needs of the country," he added.

In that that vein, he said, all TVET institutions were part of the Free SHS policy.

Mr Osafo-Maafo gave the assurance that the government was committed to transforming the TVET sector in a holistic manner which included welfare-related issues and concerns from academics, administrators and researchers who worked to make the system functional.

Earlier, Professor Emmanuel James Flolu, Chairman of Ho Technical University Council, said that the conference which was a research vital initiative must be held annually to create a strong synergy between industry and academia.

He entreated the government to set up research units at all strategic corporate organisations, especially the manufacturing industries, to enable technical universities to build strong working ties with industry.

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