Japanese govt supports Ghana's technical training

August 25, 2008 (Page 17)

THE Japanese government has provided $3.5 million to support the government’s Technical, Vocational and Educational Training (TVET) reform project aimed at enhancing technical and vocational education and training in the country.
The money would be used to supply machinery and equipment towards piloting such institutions as the Accra Polytechnic, the National Vocational and Technical Institute (NVTI) and the Accra Technical Training Centre (ATTC).
Under the project, the Japanese government through the Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA) would provide competence-based training to beneficiaries.
The Chief Advisor to the Council for Technical, Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Mr Kenji Kimura, told the Daily Graphic in an interview during a courtesy call on the Editor of the Daily Graphic, Mr Ransford Tetteh, that the project would enhance the human resource capacity of beneficiaries and thus improve the performance of industry and the national economy as a whole.
By law, COTVET was expected to implement the reforms under the TVET project, which was aimed at improving the knowledge, skills and attitude of beneficiaries.
According to Mr Kimura, the traditional TVET system only provided knowledge and did not meet industrial needs and that had resulted in the non performance of some industries in the past.
He said the core values of the reforms were aimed at equipping beneficiaries with the requisite skills to effectively work for their own benefit, that of their companies and the country as a whole.
Mr Kimura explained that COTVET was expected to implement the TVET project nationwide after the completion of the pilot project in 2011.
Currently, he said lecturers and teachers had undergone training abroad to facilitate the implementation of the reforms.
According to him, beneficiaries would be trained to acquire skills and the right working attitude to be time conscious, productive and profit oriented.
He said Japan had since 1903 implemented a similar project and that had contributed immensely to the growth of the Japanese economy.