‘Give priority to vocational and technical training’

A Deputy National Secretary of the Public Service Workers Union (PSWU) has called for radical shift towards vocational and technical education, saying, this was the way to travel to lift more Ghanaians out of poverty.

Mr. Bernard Adjei said the neglect of that important sector of education was to blame for the growing unemployment and poor state of the national economy.

He said people’s attitudes to vocational training should change if the nation was to make significant progress in the fight to bring down joblessness, particularly among the youth.

He was addressing the first quadrennial delegates conference of the Integrated Community Centres for Employable Skills (ICCES) in Kumasi.

The high point of the two-day meeting was the election of new union officers of the ICCES branch of the PSWU.

The Centres, established in 1986, have the core mandate to train the youth in employable skills including dressmaking, carpentry and masonry to reduce the unemployment rate.

Mr. Adjei said when the youth have jobs, they would have no motivation to engage in criminal activities.

The ICCES National Director, Mr. Godwin A. Y. Kudese, complained about the lack of resources and said that was affecting their operations.

He said they were forced to rely on donors to survive, something, he said, that was not good enough.