Takoradi, Feb. 14, GNA - Doctor Jurgen Zimare, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) Project Advisor of the Takoradi Technical Institute (TTI), has said the country's quest for technological progress, could yield positive results only if special emphasis was placed on technical and vocational subjects.

He said junior and senior secondary school leavers should be motivated to take up technical and vocational training, to prepare them for self-employment and to contribute to national growth. Dr. Zimare said these in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Takoradi on Monday.

"Technical and Vocational Education (TVE) are key ingredients in developing the technological base of every country and Ghana must strive to make it feasible for the youth".

He said the absence of a national policy on technical and vocational training was a disincentive to such training centres and appealed to donor agencies to assist the government and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to develop such a policy, to facilitate and standardise the activities of such training institutes.

Dr. Zimare said TVE needs more investments from donors and the government, to enable such training institutes to attract a large number of the youth who could create employment opportunities for themselves and employ others.

Dr. Zimare suggested that TVE should be separated from the GES and made autonomous to enable it to attract the necessary funding for further expansion and the introduction of new courses.

He, however, said the concentration of technical and vocational institutes in the southern parts of the country had deprived several youths living in the northern sectors from benefiting from TVE. "Government must re-focus on other parts of the country, which lack technical and vocational training centres and establish some of the centres to enable more people especially the youth to benefit and create self-employment," he stressed.

Mr. John Sylvester Boafo, Principal of TTI said there was the need for more young women to enrol in TVE institutes and break away from hair dressing, catering and sewing.

He said training offered by technical institutes equipped the youth with skills, which made them suited for the labour market adding that TTI apart from its programmes, had established special changing rooms for females while the environment was female friendly.