National Skills Competition begins in Accra

The Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) has begun a four day competition to select six winners who will represent Ghana at Rwanda for this year’s Africa Skills Competition slated for November 20 to 24, 2018.

The winners, who will be selected after the maiden edition of Ghana’s National Skills Competition must be masters in the skill of Construction and Building, Fashion and Creative Arts, Transport and Logistics, Engineering Technology, fashion and creative arts and social/personal services.

Speaking to www.ghanaweb.com at the first day of the competition, policy and planning coordinator for the council for technical and vocational education and training, Samuel Thompson said government was interested in technical and vocational training which falls in line with its Ghana beyond aid agenda.

He was also optimistic that the competition will not only help the participants and the country as a whole to build on its technical capacity but will boost open Ghana up to Africa and the world at large.

“Everything borders on skills so we are preparing our people to be very skilled in various occupations. Ghana has 22 occupational sectors which have been agreed upon by all the various industry players, so we have a few of them here working towards the participation of the Africa skills competition which will come off in Kigali and after that we are looking forward to participating in the world skills competition.



That is a platform where you will get countries to demonstrate what their people can do and we believe that Ghana should participate in that demonstration.

It is also a way of showcasing to the whole world that if you have any business and you bring it here you wouldn’t have to go looking for people to come and carry out the assignment because we have it all.
So we want to encourage our youth and the learned to come on board, learn to acquire the necessary skills so that at the end of the day they will be able to match up anywhere.”

The 78 participants who successfully qualified to be in the national competition will have three days to deliver on their assigned tasks which is closely monitored by qualified judges.

The participants who were engaged in their area of expertise lauded government for the opportunity to showcase their talent.

According to them such initiatives are long overdue and very necessary if government is interested in moving beyond aid.

The competition which is being held under the theme; “Skills for Jobs and National Development” is under the auspices of the Ministry of Education with support from the Ghana Skills Development Initiative (GSDI).

Background

On September 18 to 21, Zonal Competitions were run in Accra and Kumasi respectively on six (6) different skill areas out of which 78 participants successfully qualified to be in the national competition launched November 6.

Six finalists will then be chosen to represent Ghana at Rwanda from November 20 to 24, 2018 after which a selected participant will be picked to represent Africa at the world skills competition.

It is an international event where people not older than 25 years of age represent their countries and compete with each other in various artisanal trades and skills categories.