Govt source funds to train JHS graduates

Page 15, March 11, 2010
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE government has begun arrangements with the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to source funds for the training of 15,000 junior high school graduates who were unable to continue their education to the second cycle level.
According to the Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, the ministry, in collaboration with the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) and other agencies responsible with apprenticeship training, would implement a programme meant to provide apprenticeship training in both formal and informal sectors.
The 15,000 youth are expected to be trained under the first phase of the programme.
Answering questions in Parliament last Tuesday, Mr Tettey-Enyo stated that plans were far advanced to establish the National Apprenticeship Board under the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) to oversee apprenticeship training in the country.
The Member of Parliament for Asunafo South, Mr George Yaw Boakye, posed a question inquiring from the minister about plans put in place for the large army of basic school leavers who were unable to continue their education to second cycle level, to make them productive.
Mr Tettey-Enyo explained that the curriculum of the apprenticeship programme would cover 25 identified skilled areas, and would also include communication, entrepreneurial and numeracy skills.
He stated that the government had also instituted long distance education programme, which would be launched at the Suame Magazine by June 2010, adding that courses available were automotive engineering, carpentry, welding and fabrication, hospitality and tourism, numeracy and English as a second language.
The minister said all these courses might be taken online and would be free of charge, explaining that students would learn at their own pace and acquire the work experience at the master's workshop.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said it was envisaged that graduates, after training, would be adequately prepared to start small businesses at the level of their competence in order to contribute to national development.
He explained that the government would provide the trainees with a start-up capital after their completion of the training to enable them to set up their businesses.
Answering another question, Mr Tettey-Enyo told the House that the One Laptop Per Child Programme would be scrapped and would be placed by a new programme, E-School Programme, which would be instituted by the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the GETFund and the Ministry of Communications.
He said the new programme would enable the ministry to supply more laptops to schools to enable children throughout the country to be computer literate.
Mr Tettey-Enyo disclosed that the 1,000 laptops received as part of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme had already been distributed to 30 primary schools throughout the country, explaining that each of the laptops cost $205.
He noted that even though the OLPC programme was good, there were serious sustainability and security issues that needed to be guaranteed, adding that the ministry was committed to the deployment of ICT in teaching and learning processes.
"Efforts are being made to provide laboratory solutions and not one-to-one solution at the pre-tertiary level in view of the capital-intensive nature of ICT deployment," he said.