Government has cut the sod for the construction of a new Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Workshop Centre at the St. Paul's Technical High School at Akyem-Kukurantumi in the East Akim District of the Eastern Region

At the groundbreaking ceremony, the Deputy Minister for Education in- charge TVET, Hon. Gifty Twum-Ampofo, hinted that the Akufo-Addo led government will also begin the construction of new TVET Workshop Centres across the 6 new regions in the country.

Ms. Twum Ampofo who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Abuakwa North Constituency said the contractor, Avic International, a Chinese firm, is tasked to complete and handover the fully furnished Workshop Centre in a spate of 18 months.

She explained that the project was scheduled to start in June this year but delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

She noted that with the six new regions set to get befitting TVET centres, the other three will take place in the Eastern and Central to complement Phase One, adding that, Technical and Vocational Education and Training is the priority of the government of Nana Akufo-Addo.

Mrs Gifty Twum speaking further pointed out that the government has invested much in TVET which is about $1billion.

The Deputy Education Minister disclosed that her sector has funded for 32 states of the art TVET centres which can be compared to that of Japan, Singapore and other top countries.

She said, with the 32 states of the art TVET centres, they have grouped them into phases, that is Phase 1, 2 and 3, adding that each Phase is having 9 TVET centres with the first 6 going into the new six regions since they lack a proper TVET centre.

According to her, TVET is expensive and need a lot of commitment and passion and that, they are not talking about free TVET as a slogan but making millions of investment in establishing TVET institutions with a state of the art workshops and laboratories to ensure that students who attend TVET school become globally competitive.

She said, since 2017, they have done a lot of investment and advocacy to ensure that number of students who attend the various TVET institutions been formal, complementary or informal, they all receive world standard training.

"We have invested so much money in qualification framework to ensure that we revive and derive a new curriculum based on CD Pedagogy to ensure that individuals who attend the various TVET institutions come out with experts in their own areas not in areas that they are not interested in

"From 2017 until now, we've trained about 65, 000 learners and all these trainings are free. In fact, TVET schools are expensive as compared to that of the grammar schools. I'm glad to announce that all monies for the practicals for the whole of the four years of the free SHS introduced in 2017, all practicals money were sent on time and during their examination, while we paid gh15 for grammar schools, we paid gh35 for technical schools practicals and this shows our commitment to free TVET education" she said.

She said in the bid to make TVET attractive, the sector has sent bills to Parliament which is education regulators bill and has expressed that, the bill is completed and functioning, remaining with the pre-tertiary bill.

She stressed the government's commitment towards TVET saying it is spending $131 million in NVTI whereas $478 million has been injected into the state of art Phase 1 project.

Chief lauds Government

The Chief Of Akyem-Kukurantumi, Osaberima Boama Darko expressed gratitude to the government for the keen interest taking towards TVET schools.

He then pleaded with the government to attend to the poor road networks in the area.