Ms Mavis Ama Frimpong, Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, has challenged the Council for Technical and Vocational Education Training (COTVET), to make Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) attractive.

She said, COTVET with its mandate, must lead the crusade of advocacy and education, to ensure that TVET becomes the first option when it comes to choice of the type of training for any Ghanaian child.

In the view of the Deputy Minister, COTVET must do more to help erase the negative perception of Ghanaians for TVET as a training for failures.

Ms Frimpong said, government’s intention of converting the polytechnics into universities was an indication of commitment to give TVET a facelift, and therefore COTVET must step up its mandate to bring all stakeholders on board to accept TVET.

She was speaking at an advocacy workshop organized by COTVET and Vocational Training for Females (VTF), a non-governmental organization, which focuses on girls training under the theme, “Redefining TVET for Employment Creation,” at Koforidua.

Ms Frimpong emphasized that, TVET was critical to Ghana’s development and, must therefore not be toyed with.

The Deputy Minister who was passionate in her speech pointed that, every phase of infrastructure development required the skills of a technical or vocational trained person, yet because little attention was paid to TVET; it was not making the impact.

She noted that there was the need for a clearly defined progression of TVET in Ghana, and explained that conversion of the polytechnics into universities was to address that gap to give leverage for technically trained persons in employment opportunities.

The Deputy Minister said, it was unfortunate that there was only one teacher training facility for Technical and Vocational instructors, and stressed the need for COTVET to step up its role to ensure that all bottlenecks in TVET were addressed.

Madam Eva Lokko, an engineer, and former Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, and Mrs Leticia Osafo Addo, an entrepreneur, who made presentations on how TVET could be used to create employment, stressed the need for recognition of TVET in national development.

Mrs Osafo-Addo noted that, outmoded curriculum used in TVET in Ghana and lack of quality instructions relevant to the current industrial demand are challenges that must be dealt with in ensuring a well-structured TVET in Ghana.

She said, TVET was the security behind every technological advancement in any developing country, and urged COTVET to organize a broad-based campaign, to change perception, and solicit support for TVET

Madam Lokko urged COTVET as the lead agency in enhancing TVET, to take up issues of cancellation of some TVET programmes, such as needlework and cooking from the basic education curriculum.