The Executive Director of the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Mr. Sebastian Deh, has announced more support for females interested in Technical and Vocational education.

According to him, the Council is committed to ensuring that females, who show interest in Technical and Vocational Education and Training, are given all the necessary encouragement to participate and succeed in the field.

Mr. Deh gave this assurance while addressing stakeholders, who had gathered at a Validation Workshop to give their inputs to the final draft of COTVET’s Gender Strategy in Accra on Wednesday.

He said the gender strategy, which was put together with the support of the Ghana Skills Development Initiative (GSDI), will serve as a guiding document to ensure that gender issues are mainstreamed into the activities of COTVET.

The Executive Director indicated that COTVET is already exploring several approaches to encourage females to venture into male-dominated trade areas including welding and fabrication, auto mechanics, carpentry, and engineering.

He mentioned the revamping of Guidance and Counseling units in schools, and the use of successful role models to encourage young females to explore new career options, and break down outdated taboos.

“The days of females being restricted to limited career options have no place in 21st century Ghana”, he stressed.

Mr. Deh expressed appreciation to the German government for their support in putting the document together, and hinted that a bursary scheme to benefit females venturing into male dominated career areas would soon be launched by COTVET.

COTVET established through an act of Parliament in 2006 is to formulate policies for skills development across the broad spectrum of pre-tertiary and tertiary education, formal, informal and non-formal, to ensure quality access to technical and vocational education and training and facilitate research and development in technical and vocational education and training.

The overall goals of the Council are to ensure that the unemployed, particularly the youth, are given competitive, employable and entrepreneurial skills nationally and globally within the formal and informal sectors.

It is also to ensure that graduates coming out of our formal, informal and non-formal TVET institutions are endowed with employable and entrepreneurial skills.