Gov’t to build 20 modern TVET institutions

President Akufo-Addo said the government has a plan to expand technical and vocational opportunities at both secondary and tertiary levels to strengthen the link between education and industry.

He was speaking at the 50th-anniversary celebration of the Ho Technical University, in the Volta Region.

President Akufo-Addo said countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea took fundamental decisions to transform their economies from raw material and agrarian to value-added and industrial economies.

He added these are countries with whom Ghana started the independence journey, have “outstripped us, today, by far, in terms of development.”

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“This is the reason why my Government has placed importance on guaranteeing access to a minimum of senior high school education for all children and has laid emphasis, in particular, on Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) as a major pillar for development.”

He said the government has a plan to expand technical and vocational opportunities at both secondary and tertiary levels. He added that this will strengthen the linkages between education and industry, as well as empower young people to deploy their skills, to employ themselves and others.

In order to achieve this, the government has brought all public TVET institutions in the country under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Education to streamline their curricula and improve the coordination of their training.

The Deputy Minister for Education, Barbara Asher Ayisi, has been made directly responsible for technical and vocational education.

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“The 5-year Strategic Plan for TVET, approved by Cabinet, has set out certain structural reforms, such as setting up a TVET Service and TVET Council, and dedicating a whole division of the education service to the management of technical and vocational education, with its own Director General.”

“Government is fully aware of the infrastructural needs of our Technical Universities. Efforts have been made at supplying demonstration laboratories for engineering students in some of the Technical Universities, including Ho Technical University, by Amatrol. The Ministry of Education is taking steps to providing similar laboratories to the rest of the Technical Universities,” he added.

“There is a significant matter I must address, and it relates to the decision taken by the Governing Council of Ho Technical University, in accordance with the Statutes of the University, to rename this institution after Ephraim Amu, the great Ghanaian cultural icon, who asserted that the creative faculty should embrace also the capacity to work with one’s hands.”

“This decision is an excellent one, which has received the blessing of the President of the Republic, so that, once the parliamentary process has been completed, this University will, thereafter, be called the Ephraim Amu Technical University, Ho,” he added.

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