Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia on Tuesday commissioned the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) Service headquarters and Applied Technology Institute in Accra as part of efforts to upgrade and modernise TVET education.
The facilities were constructed for more than US$131.65 million and comprised administration blocks, classroom blocks, ICT centres and workshop equipment, as well as male and female dormitories.
Additionally, the Vice-President handed over 64 vehicles comprising 37 buses, 21 double cabin pick-ups, three Toyota Fortuner, two tractors and one Toyota V8 Landcruiser.
Vice President Bawumia, speaking at the hand-over ceremony, said the facilities and the vehicles were the largest investment the Government had made in the history of TVET education in Ghana and an indication of its commitment to transforming the sector.
He said the Government was making steady progress in bringing technical and vocational education to the front burner of the educational strata, noting that the provision of TVET service was the panacea to curbing the youth unemployment in Ghana.
“It is against this background that we need to have balanced skills demand and supply in our educational system, especially in our part of the globe,” Dr Bawumia added.
The government signed a contract with the Planet One Group for the upgrading and modernization of the vocational education system in Ghana.
In view of that, several other initiatives have been undertaken by the government in giving greater emphasis and impetus to TVET education in Ghana.
Those efforts and initiatives, the Vice President said, had begun yielding some remarkable results unparallel in the history of the country, at least for the past three decades.
He said over the last six years, some of the interventions made in the TVET sector included the upgrading and modernization of all the erstwhile 34 National Vocational and Technical Institutes (NVTI), upgrading and modernization of Head Offices together with 10 regional offices, upgrading and modernization of five apprenticeship offices across the country, and upgrading and modernization of the Opportunity Industrialization Centre in Accra, comprising the construction, rehabilitation and equipping of laboratories, workshops, additional classrooms, hostels, administration blocks, two new foundries and machining centres – one in CSIR (Accra) and the other at KNUST, Kumasi.
In addition, there are new workshops (computer, electrical, electronic, building construction, mechanical), rehabilitation of buildings in two technical institutes (Abetifi and Don Bosco) and four Senior High Technical Schools (Kyebi SHTS, Dagbon State SHTS, St. Georges SHTS and GSTS) construction of five new district TVET centres of excellence ongoing with that of Anyinam and Pakyi No. Two, are near completion, while Assin Jakai in the Central Region, and Akomadan and Manso Abore in the Ashanti Region will start soon.
Also, the Government have completed and inaugurated the rehabilitation and upgrading of 10 technical universities and 13 technical institutes, which include the construction of new workshops/laboratories and supply and installation of equipment fit for disciplines in electrical and electronics engineering, welding technology, automotive maintenance, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering, Dr Bawumia said.
At Abramkesse in the Ashanti region on Monday, June 6, 2022, Vice President Bawumia cut the sod for the construction of the first phase of 32 state-of-the-Art TVET centres to be built across the 16 regions.
The project is expected to comprise the establishment of one TVET centre of excellence, 16 Category A centres and 15 Category B centres.
The first phase is made up of nine centres which would be located at Abrankese in the Ashanti region; Akyem Awisa in the Eastern Region; Boako in the Western North Region; Kenyasi in the Ahafo Region; Patuda in the Bono East Region; Dambai in the Oti Region; Salaga in the Savannah region; Guabuliga in the Northeast Region and Tolibri in the Upper West region.
“It is my hope that the beneficiaries of these state-of-the-art facilities and vehicles would demonstrate a high level of patriotism and professionalism in their usage to serve the intended purpose.”
He urged the management and staff of the Ghana TVET Service to serve as an example in the area of maintenance of these facilities for other institutions to emulate.
The government would extend the provision of more infrastructure to the other institutions, Dr Bawumia assured.
The management of the Ghana TVET Service, in collaboration with the sector ministry, is planning to construct three TVET incubation centres and 10 state-of-the-art TVET institutions across the country to serve as a final polishing phase for TVET graduates’ transition into the job market.
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These will be the first-ever TVET Incubation Centres to be established in the country.
Those investments, the Vice-President said had resulted in a record-breaking enrollment of over 45,000 students in various programmes in TVET Institutions across the country.
