Ministry To Establish 20 Vocational, Technical Centres

Kukurantumi (Eastern Region), 19 Oct. The Ministry of Education is to establish 20 vocational and technical resource centres throughout the country and rehabilitate existing technical institutes. In this regard, the ministry has signed a memorandum of understanding with Messrs TNW of Holland for the establishment of the centres which are to be strategically located at existing technical institutes. Mr Kwabena Kyere, deputy minister of Education, said this in a speech to mark the 40th anniversary of St. Paul Technical School at Kukurantumi, Akim, on Saturday. The theme for the anniversary was: ''Technical Education in the 21st Century, Prospects and Problems''. Mr Kyere said the centres which will initially focus on four courses, including mechanical engineering, automotive engineering, carpentry/building and electrical/electronic trades, would be open to private and public institutes. He explained that by this approach, it is hoped that private sector technical and vocational institutes would have the opportunity of giving their students some practical training that had previously been lacking. He said government plans to take a critical look at courses being offered in technical institutes with the view to reviewing their syllabuses in terms of their relevance to the needs of the country. Mr Kyere said to strengthen close ties between industry and vocational education, industry and commerce would be involved in devising course contents in the institutes. This would be done through the setting up of a Ghana Education Service/Industry course advisory committee. As a start, he said 69 tutors were attached to some firms for practical training during the last long vacation. Mr Kyere said to ensure that the technical/vocational educational sector played the necessary role in the attainment of Ghana's Vision 2020, the government, in collaboration with some funding agencies, is in the process of putting in place an initiative for conducting a sectoral analysis study to provide direction and identify roles for various agencies for coordination in technical education delivery. He donated to the school on behalf of the government, two million cedis for library books.