A Consultant has proposed that the Council of Technical Vocational Education Training (COTVET) should be placed under the Ministry of Trade and Industry so that users of skills would have control over it.
Dr Henry Akplu, a Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) Consultant also proposed the rename of COTVET as Skills Development Authority (SDA) positioned under the Ministry.
According to Dr Akplu in a country where peculiarities of skills development are not understood, placing it under the Ministry of Education would be dangerous adding “general academic education practice would swallow up skills”.
Dr Akplu was speaking at the “Comfort Ntiamoah-Mensah’s Memorial Forum on TVET at Osu in Accra on the theme: Building a Solid Foundation for TVET in Ghana- A situational Analysis.”
The Consultant explained that “skills development should be industry driven and industry should be steering skills development. Skills quality and service quality go together you cannot get good quality products and services if skill quality is poor”.
Dr Akplu observed that skills development began with the determination of industrial skill needs.
He said: “Skill learning cannot successful without the involvement of industry
He said when it comes to funding the competition within the Ministry of Education is too great for skills development to get a good share.
Dr Akplu said it is proper to an authentic Skills Development Fund (SDF) and percentages from Ghana Education trust Fund and Youth Employment Authority fund lodged into the SDF to support Skills development.
“If we are serious about skills development, then we should allocate money from internal sources instead of resorting to wasteful loan arrangements,” he said.
He said it is ridiculous that the country’s political leaders talk about industrialisation but does not care about skills development.
“Our governments are not committed to building to building skills development even though COTVET was given legal mandate by Parliament, “he said.
He urged civil society organisations to advocate greater independence for skills development from general academic education stream.
He called for review of the National TVET qualification framework since the current qualification system does not favour skills development.
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Source: GNA