A service contract has been signed between the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) and the Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (CTVET) to provide skills and knowledge in a specific trade and vocation for sustainable job creation.

The pact, under the Ghana TVET Voucher Project (GTVP) and sponsored by KfW of Germany, GAEC will provide competency-based training and assessment for recognition of prior learning in welding and fabrication as well as consumer electronics for national proficiency I and II.

In his remarks at the signing ceremony in Accra yesterday, the Director-General of GAEC, Prof. Samuel Boakye Dampare, said the agreement provides GAEC with the opportunity to deploy its facilities and rich experiences to impart skills and knowledge in welding and electronics and also fill the skills gap for the job market.

“It must translate into job creation, which has indeed been a priority of the government to use avenues such as TVET to significantly reduce unemployment in the country, thereby bolstering socio-economic development,” he added.

Prof. Dampare indicated that, aside from GAEC being a scientific research institution addressing societal problems through its research-driven solutions, it is fast establishing itself as a provider of competency-based TVET training in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

“The STEM approach in TVET encourages students to combine ideas and procedures from various disciplines to create new applications or solutions,” he added.

For her part, the Project Coordinator for TVET at GAEC, Ms. Shiela Frimpong, explained that the Commission is not new to TVET, having previously provided training in a number of TVET programmes.

“And so, as an institution, we have experience as a training provider in TVET. Now, with the support of CTVET and other partners, we are looking at strengthening our TVET-based contribution to socio-economic development through the STEM in TVET concept,” she added.

Ms. Frimpong expressed gratitude to the CTVET and other partners for their collaboration with GAEC in providing TVET training to learners to help create jobs, thereby bolstering the country's socio-economic development.