General News of Thursday, 2 February 2023

Source: GNA

Government to develop new five-year strategic plan for TVET — Dr Kyei Asamoah

File Photo File Photo

Dr Fred Kyei Asamoah, Director General of, the Commission for Technical Vocational Education and Training (CTVET), says the government plans to develop a new five-year strategic plan and policy for TVET transformation.

He said the new policy (2023 – 2027) would look at the digitalisation of the TVET system as well as the licensing and professionalisation of TVET graduates.

Dr Asamoah made the disclosure when he engaged the media in Accra to outline the Commission’s programmes and activities for the year.

The government 2018 launched its first five-year strategic plan (2018 – 2022) to transform TVET and establish strong links between industry, TVET providers and academia.

Under the first strategic plan, the government had five key policy objectives to focus on such as governance and management of TVET, equitable access and promotion of gender mainstreaming, quality assurance in TVET based on internationally accepted standards, sustainable source of funding for TVET and Greening TVET for environmental sustainability.

Out of the five key policy objectives, the government came out with 14 strategies for implementation, which include the establishment of the sector skills bodies, realignment of all TVET institutions under the Ministry of Education, Operationalization of the CTVET and TEVT Service, and the establishment of the Akenten Appiah Menkah University for Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED) to serve as an apex training institution for TVET training.

The rest are to strengthen training in the agriculture sector, strengthen the capacity of CTVET and TVET Service, conduct skills gap analysis and audit, profiling and needs assessment of TVET institutions and implementation of the recognition of prior learning policy.

The others are the creation of a new state of the art TEVT institution, effective implementation of the Competency Based Training Policy, the progressive adoption of a modified dual system, the creation of Ghana skills development fund to support TVET financing, and amonstate-of-the-artg others.

Dr Asamoah explained that under the new policy, the government was looking at creating a sustainable TVET financing mechanism with the enhancement of the Ghana Skills Development Fund (GSDF).

He said in 2023 the biggest activity of the Commission would be to oversee the implementation of the modified dual TVET system.

He said as part of the regulatory mandate of the Commission, monitoring mechanism would also be institutionalized with tracer studies in the TVET institutions, especially in the Technical Universities, adding that the Commission was working towards bridging innovation and learning in TVET.