A photograph taken during the tour of the facility
Dr Fred Kyei Asamoah, the Director-General of the Commission for Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET), has indicated that President Akufo Addo’s vision of making Ghana a world-class TVET hub is gradually taking shape with the massive infrastructure projects ongoing to revamp TVET. He made this known during a visit to some selected TVET projects with the Parliamentary Select Committee for Education.
The Parliamentary Select Committee for Education is currently touring ongoing TVET projects around the country to assess the progress and report back to the house.
In Accra, the Committee visited a new campus for the Accra Technical University at Mpehuasem (Samsam), inaugurated in 2018 and is currently being restocked with new tools and equipment under the Ghana China Project on the Rehabilitation and Upgrading of Equipment in Technical Universities and Institutes. The Committee also visited the Ashaiman Technical Institute, where there is a newly constructed workshop with state-of-the-art tools and equipment under the same project.
Furthermore, the team visited the NVTI headquarters and the Construction Machinery VTO, both at East Legon, where there is ongoing construction work under the project overall the upgrade and modernization of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system in Ghana, which commenced in 2019.
It would be recalled that in 2018, whilst speaking at the centenary celebration of Asuansi Technical Institute, in Asuansi, in the Central Region, President Akufo-Addo said it was the goal of his government to make Ghana a world-class centre for skills development and a leading country in technical and vocational education training (TVET) delivery in Africa.
He further outlined government’s strategic policy on Technical and Vocational Education and Training and stated: “We want to emphasize the importance of TVET, and redeem the misconception that technical and vocational education is inferior and patronized only by less endowed students.”
This promise has informed government’s ‘resolve to invest over $700 million since 2017. According to Dr Asamoah, the government is upgrading and modernizing all National Vocational Training Institutes (NVTIs) and Opportunity Industrialization Centres (OIC).
The “government is also constructing three foundries and machining centres, work on which is ongoing. “Further, work includes upgrading of 17 Technical and Vocational Institutes across the country and building an office complex to support the unit responsible for TVET examination”, Dr Asamoah stated.
He added that additional infrastructural equipment is being provided at all technical universities to achieve quality delivery at the tertiary level with industry 4.0 standards.
The team will be visiting the Central, Western, Ashanti and Eastern Region over the next two weeks as part of this project inspection.