The chiefs and people of the Offinso North District of Ashanti can now boast of a technical, vocational and community development training institute designed principally to propel technical education and skills development for the youth in the district.
Thanks to the initiative and foresight of Mr Augustine Collins Ntim, Member of Parliament for the area and also the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, who single-handedly established the institute and is sponsoring the first batch of 101 students.
Located at Nkenkaasu and named after Nana YaaPokuaa, queen mother of the town, the school is the third educational institution so far established by the MP in the district.
The two others are the Nkenkaasu Community Senior High school and the Afrancho-based WiafeAkenten Senior High/Technical School.
Speaking at a matriculation ceremony for the first batch of 101 students of the institute here last Monday, Mr Ntim announced that arrangements had been concluded to absorb the institute which offers a variety of programmes including the electrical, tiling, plumbing, hairdressing and fashion design into the government’s Free SHS programme.
The move, he said, was in tune with the government’s plan to make Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) also free to help promote technical and vocational education in the country.
Highlighting his focus on technical and vocational education in the district, the MP explained that“it is to enable the untapped potentials of a chunk of our young constituents who could not gain access into the mainstream Basic and Secondary education to make it through technical and vocational education”.
He pledged his determination to make the institute one of the best in the country and more importantly “one of my legacy projects in the district”.