Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to make a statement on the importance of Technical and Vocational Education & Training (TVET) and the need to focus on it as a country.

Mr. Speaker, Ghana is blessed by God with abundant natural resources. It behoves on us as a people to derive the maximum possible benefit from it through industrialization to make the lives of our people better. But to be able to do so, the critical bridge to cross is vital skills acquisition. It is these skills, together with innovation that can and do serve as catalysts to move this country beyond the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water for the benefit of other nations. Without these, the natural resources remain just what there are, sitting in the earth or on our trees. It is therefore imperative that we invest in ensuring that our citizenry possess the necessary skills to lift this country unto the sunlit paths of prosperity and promise.

Mr. Speaker When the NPP under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo took over the reins of government in its first term in 2017, there were several challenges that were hindering the impact TVET is supposed to make in the country.  These included;

• Poor linkage between training institutions and industry;
• A deeply fragmented landscape and lack of coordination among multiple TVET delivery agencies;
• Multiplicity of standards, testing and certification systems;
• Low quality of instruction, due to inadequate instructor training and lack of instructional support and TVET infrastructure; 
• An informal TVET system that had been neglected and detached from the formal sector;
• Poor public perception of TVET.

Government therefore set out a 5-year strategic plan for TVET transformation. It is also tied to the broader Education Sector Plan (ESP) being implemented by the Ministry of Education.

Mr. Speaker, the following key milestones have been achieved.

1. The merger of COTVET and NABPTEX as a result of the passage of the Education Regulatory Bodies Act 1023. This will ensure the effective regulation, standardization, certification and promotion of technical and vocational education and training for transformation and innovation for sustainable development.
2. The Pre-tertiary Education Act, which brings all pre-tertiary TVET institutions under the Ministry of Education to ensure standardization of certification has been passed.
3. The Act also establishes and allow for the operationalization of the Technical and Vocational Education Service (TVES) as a pre-tertiary delivery agency under Ministry of Education.
4. Parliament in August last year also passed the University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development Act, 2020 which is establishing an apex institution for the training of more TVET staff for the sector.
5. We have also begun the establishment of Sector Skills Bodies to focus on exploration of business opportunities, innovation and capacity needs within the sectors.

Mr. Speaker, further, a total of 32 State of the Art TVET institutions (two per region) costing about half a billion dollars will be constructed across all the 16 regions of Ghana.

This government is also upgrading and modernizing all National Vocational training Institutes (NVTIs) and Opportunity Industrialization Centers (OIC). Work is ongoing for the construction of three Foundries and Machining. We are upgrading 17 Technical and Vocational Institutes across the country and building an office complex to support the unit responsible for TVET Examination. Overall, on infrastructure alone, this government has invested over 700 million dollars in TVET.

Mr. Speaker, on quality assurance, the key achievements are;

1. Operationalization of National TVET Qualifications Framework (NTVETQF)
2. Implementation of Competency Based Training (CBT) policy with over 124 TVET institutions accredited to offer CBT since 2017.
3. Also, 42 CBT Curricula have been developed, with more under way. It is our aim that by 2022 all TVET institutions will be using the CBT approach as the mode of instruction and issuing certificates on the NTVETQF.

Mr. Speaker, in order to ensure that apprenticeship training is properly regulated, the Ministry of Education has submitted a draft National Apprenticeship Policy to Cabinet for Approval. This sets out the mechanisms required to strengthen the apprenticeship system in Ghana and help improve opportunities for youth employment.

Mr. Speaker, Government in collaboration with the German Government has also provided free apprenticeship training to over 13,000 Ghanaians since 2017 through the Ghana TVET Voucher project being implemented by COTVET. In addition to this, Free TVET is a key component of the Free Senior High School initiative of the government and over 65,000 leaners have so far benefitted from this in the various technical institutes under the Ministry of Education.

Mr. Speaker, if we are to make headway with the investments and reforms we are pursuing in TVET, we must necessarily confront head-on, the negative image TVET has suffered over the years as a refuge for academically weak students and as a last resort for young people considering careers. Through the MyTVET campaign and other initiatives, this government is working assiduously with various stakeholders to ensure that TVET becomes a first, rather than last option for young people seeking to go into the world of work.

Mr. Speaker, in the past four years, through my work at the Ministry of Education, I was privileged to witness at first hand the incredible work done by the Ministry under the sector Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the Honourable Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, and the Council for Technical and Vocational Education & Training (COTVET) in the promotion of TVET in this country, and I wish to pay tribute to him for his leadership, drive and focus. I am further confident that the current Minister and Hon. Member for Bosomtwe, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, will lead the sector to greater heights.

Mr. Speaker, our country has a mass of young working force who are eager to work, but lack the requisite skills that are necessary to provide them with sustainable livelihoods to take care of themselves and their families. If we ignore them, we will have a social implosion on our hands, for a restless, unemployed and unemployable youthful population is a recipe for disaster on so many levels and is actually a security threat. It cannot be tenable that people in this country have to import tilers from neighbouring countries, or that we have not trained enough young Ghanaian people to take up specialized skilled jobs in the oil sector following the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in 2007.

Mr. Speaker, if we invest in our young people and provide them with the vital skills that are relevant in the 21^st century industrialized society that we seek to build, we not only tackle our industrialization agenda but also our youth employment challenges. We therefore have a duty to treat this critical subsector with all the urgency that we can muster, because it is linked directly to the success or otherwise of the industrialized and modern country that we all yearn to see actualized.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to make this statement of government in line with Order 70(2) in this august house.