The Skills Development Fund (SDF) has supported about 646 businesses with US$51.9million since its inception and has led to the creation of 13,000 direct jobs, Prof Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang, Minister of Education has said.

Citing Koko King, an indigenous business, as an example, she said SDF supported the company to upgrade the skills of its staff in food packaging, safety and hygiene and acquisition of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCIP) certification.

She said with the SDF support, Koko King has improved the quality of production and packaging and won new contracts to supply products to airlines due to its HACCIP certification.

She added that SDF has been part of the Afrocentric Bamboo success story, as the fund supported Afrocentric Bamboo to acquire laser bamboo technology to increase the production of bamboo bicycles.

The intervention, she said, has reduced the time spend on the production of bicycle frames from three days to 20 hours per employee, culminating in production increase from 50 bicycle frames to 90 frames per month.

The Minister was speaking at the Skills and Technology Fair organised by COTVET in Accra to exhibit the outcomes of government’s support to the skills and technology sector and also provide a platform for collaboration, partnership building and experiencing sharing among various stakeholders in the skills sector.

Mr. Sebastian Deh, Executive Director of COTVET, said: “the centrality of skills to our development as a nation is a fact without dispute. In fact, the quality of skills of a country determines its productivity levels and ability to create jobs and generate income.

“This is why skills development has become a highly topical development policy issue in Ghana in the past decade.”

He said COTVET was proud to host and successfully implement projects aimed at developing market driven skills in the country including the Development of Skills for Industry Project and Ghana TVET Voucher Project being funded by the African Development Bank and the German Government.

All these projects, he said, are geared towards skills development in the formal and informal sectors.

The Skills and Technology Development Project is one of government’s interventions to improve the quality of skills and technology.

The SDF constituted the flagship of the entire project and received about US$50million out of the US$70million allocated by the World Bank and an additionalUS$10million from DANIDA.

It was initiated in 2011 with funding from the World Bank and DANIDA with the aim of improving demand-driven skills development and increased adoption of new technologies in selected economic sectors of the country.

The Danish Government through its development agency, DANIDA, has again supported the second phase of the Skills Development Fund with US$17.5million to extend the fund for another five years.