Govt pledges to invest in TVET to tackle unemployment

The government has announced plans to increase the number of students pursuing Technical and Vocational Educational Training (TVET) to 50% of all learners, to address the country’s unemployment rate.

According to the Commission for Technical and Vocational Educational Training, the number of Junior High School students pursuing TVET programmes at Senior High Schools has increased significantly, but more needs to be done to make the sector more attractive, especially to young people.

Dr. Fred Kyei Asamoah, Director-General of the Commission, emphasised the need for Ghana to embrace TVET, citing international examples such as Germany, where 65% of learners pursue TVET.

He highlighted the importance of dual training, where students combine workplace experience with lectures.

“The perception about TVET is international, it’s not only in Ghana. When we came first into government, the percentage of learners going into TVET in Germany was close to 70 percent. Now is about 65 so the Germans are looking for a new approach, advanced dual TVET, so you want to go to the university, that’s fine but it has to be dual training, so you go to the workplace three days and go for lectures two days because whether we like it or not, the TVET approach is what’s going to happen.”

”So, it’s about product. If you look at what we’ve done, moving from below 20,000 learners from junior secondary schools going to TVET to over 60,000 it is something significant. But have we gotten there yet? No! We are expecting that at Keats about 50 percent of our learners should be opting for TVET.”

Entrepreneur and CEO of Unijay Company Limited, Janet Abobigo, welcomed the initiative, stating that it will boost Ghana’s TVET sector and provide more job opportunities for the youth.

She also highlighted the importance of technical knowledge in industries and the potential for exporting goods to countries like the US.