Students
of technical and vocational institutions in the Eastern Region
have made a passionate appeal to the government to commit adequate
funding to Technical, Vocational Education Training (TVET) in the country.
They
said since TVET courses were generally more expensive to pursue than other
courses in the Senior High
Schools, the government should give priority to financing the
teaching and learning of technical and vocational training.
“We
therefore appeal to the government to go beyond absorbing only the tuition fees
at public TVET schools to also cover the cost of training materials of
students,” they said.
The
students made the appeal in a communiqué they issued during
the Eastern Regional TVET seminar organised by the International
Child Development Programme (ICDP) in partnership with Plan International
Ghana in Koforidua last Thursday.
The
event was held on the theme: “Empowering the Girl Child, the Role of
TVET”, brought together about 150 students from the Hyundai-KOICA
Technical Institute, Liberty Special Institute, and Universal Schools among
others to dialogue with stakeholders in the TVET on how to
empower the girl child through TVET.
Reading
the communiqué on behalf of TVET students, Ms Elizabeth Ofori, a
second year electrical student of the Hyundai KOICA Technical Institute at
Koforidua, said the dwindling nature of enrolment figures in TVET institutions
could be blamed on inadequate financing of TVET institutions.
She, therefore, was optimistic that government’s intervention to adequately finance TVET would not only enhance teaching and learning but would attract more females to enrol in TVET.
“We call for an equal access for all women and men to affordable,
quality, technical, vocational and tertiary education and recommend that
government include TVET as part of this year’s Voluntary National
Review report on the Sustainable Development Goal 4 to be submitted at the
United Nations General Assembly in July.”
On
employment, she stated that TVET remained one key solution in helping the
country deal with unemployment, adding that TVET must be an
important part of the county’s employment creation agenda since white
collar jobs were becoming less available.
She
also called on the government to move the Hyundai-KOICA Institute in
Koforidua which was still under the Ministry of Trade and Industries to
the Ministry of Education for effective coordination.
For
his part, the Eastern Regional Manager for Plan International, Ghana, Mr Kofi
Adade Debrah, called on the government to extend the free education and
its adequate funding to TVET institutions to cut cost
of teaching and learning.
Speaking
on the theme, Mr Debrah also called for an affirmative action of
positive discrimination where the government and other stakeholders would
invest more in girls TVET.
“When
that is done, it will serve as an incentive to attract more females and my
outfit has shown the way by sponsoring female students to study TVET in
Hyundai-KOICA Institute and government can do same.”
He also called for a change in perception that technical education was for men and encouraged more females to pursue technical education, adding it would help achieve equality in the country.
FROM AMA TEKYIWAA AMPADU AGYEMAN, KOFORIDUA