Koforidua, May, 27 GNA - The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) has released GHc 3,000,000, to the Council for Technical and Vocational Education (COTVET) to support apprenticeship training in the informal sector.

Fifteen thousand (15,000) Junior High School graduates who could not pursue further education would benefit from the training scheduled to start in the 2010/2011 academic year. The Executive Director of the Council for Technical and Vocational Training, Mr Daniel Baffour Awuah, made this known at a two-day training workshop for Board of Directors and Standing Committees of COTVET in Koforidua on Thursday.

He said his outfit was collaborating with the National Youth Employment Programme and the district assemblies throughout the country to give the beneficiaries the needed skills training. Mr Baffour Awuah said the training programme was under the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Support Project, being implemented by COTVET.

The main aim of the programme is the strengthening of the organisational capacity of COTVET and its implementing institutions to deliver. He said the project would span four years, starting from 2007 to 2011 with financial support from Japanese Government through the Japanese's International Co-operation Agency (JICA), who had provided a grant of 3.4 million dollars. The Assistant Resident Representative of JICA, Mr Ichiro Fukuhara, said his outfit is working to support the educational sector in Ghana, including the Technical, Vocational, Education and Training (TVET) sub -sector for a long period. He said the main purpose of the project was to technically enhance the institutional capacity of TVET to conduct reforms and improve delivery mainly through COTVET and piloting institutions by introducing the Competency Based Training, which support students to acquire practical skills for employment.

The Director of Statistics, Research Information Management and Public Relations Division of the Ministry of Education, Dr Dominic Pealore, who represented the Education Minister, Mr Alex Tetteh- Enyo, pledged the ministry's support to the development of technical and vocational education. He said that was the only way to reduce the high rate of unemployment among the youth. 27 May 10