GNA – Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education has inaugurated the Governing Board of seven regulatory and technical tertiary institutions with a call on them to implement programmes to improve technical and vocational education in the country.
The Boards included that of the Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (CTVET), National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NASIA), National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) and Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC).
The rest are the Ghana Communication Technology University (GCTU), Accra Technical University Council and the Student Loan Trust Fund.
Speaking at the swearing-in of the Board of CTVET, Mr Adutwum said the development of TVET remained high on Government’s education reform agenda as it was key to the development of the country.
He said, CTVET as the monitoring, evaluation and regulator of technical and vocational institutions in the country, it must implement policies and programmes that would improve the standards of technical education and better equip students for the job market.
One of such policies, the Minister said was to ensure the implementation of the German-like vocational dual system to equip students with the requisite employable skills to enable them to become successful.
“You have to begin to look at how to create internship programmes that will take these students from the classroom and put them in the field, but that is not going to happen if the internship programme is not well structured, so you have a task to perform, a task to ensure that the German dual TVET system which we have gone and experienced is finally implemented in this country because as of now, there is not a single school that is doing the dual system and I don’t think it should continue,” he said.
He urged the Commission to also collaborate with the GTEC to make sure technical universities and other institutions involved in the TVET sector were well regulated and perform their role.
On NASIA, the Minister asked the Board to prioritise underperforming and underdeveloped schools in their inspections to ensure that they received immediate support needed to make them more viable.
He said: “I need you to prioritise schools where there is a great sense of urgency that if nothing happens the future of those children will be in a dire straight.”
To the NaCCA Board, Dr Adutwum charged them to help improve the quality of textbooks approved for use.
“The quality of textbooks that come out from your outfit should be such that nobody should doubt it,” he emphasised.
On GTEC, the Minister tasked the Board to collaborate with pre-tertiary institutions to boost students’ enrolment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at the university.
He also charged them to look at innovative ways that would allow students who did not offer science at the pre-tertiary level to pursue it at the university to achieve the country’s 60 percent STEM, 40 percent humanities target.
The Board Chairs assured the Minister of their readiness to work hard to improve the various institutions under their guidance.
The boards are made up of representatives of the various stakeholders including the University Teachers Association of Ghana, Alumni, GTEC, Government nominees, public and private education institutions, security agencies and industry players.
GNA