Nana Akomeah, Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment (MYE) has stated that the Ministry was poised to modernize the traditional apprenticeship system which has been recognized as a major source of skills supply to industry in Ghana. He said the Ministry would also empower the National Vocational Training Institute, the government agency mandated by law to organize and supervise the apprenticeship system, to improve and integrate it with the formal education and training system. He said this in a paper presented on the “Review of Current Policies, Programmes and Perspectives on Human Resource Development” read on his behalf at a National Consensus Building Dialogue on Comprehensive long-term Development Plan for Ghana which opened in Kumasi on Friday. The two-day programme, organized by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) is under the theme; “Developing Human Capital towards Middle-Income Status”. The workshop is to build a national consensus on strategic and visionary approach to developing the human capital of the nation so as to help attain a middle income status by the year 2015 and is being attended by over 200 high profiled personalities and specialized human development organizations. He stressed that the need for the transformation of the traditional apprenticeship system into a more desirable form of skills acquisition cannot be overemphasized and therefore the recommendation that an apprenticeship stream be created as one of the post-basic education alternative track is welcome. He said the efforts of the ministry were to institute a total human capital development that would make the individual gainfully and sustainably employable stressing that the ministry with the support from the UNDP was in the process of finalizing the national Human Resource Development policy “The policy aims at a total mobilization of the work force, enhancing job growth, job diversification, and fostering strong collaboration between public and private sector operators to ensure a structured and integral approach to human resource development in Ghana”, the minister said. Mr. Emmanuel Asamoah Owusu-Ansah, Ashanti Regional Minister in a welcoming address emphasized that the importance of development to any nation cannot be over emphasized in the sense that, “failing to plan means planning to fail”. He noted that when the human capital is developed, choices are enlarged and the most of these choices are the option to lead a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, having access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living He said under the GPRS I and II government had been promoting formal education and training, access to health care, controlling malaria and HIV/AIDS and providing ample protection and security for the poor and the vulnerable in the midst and ensuring gender parity in all spheres of life. Presenting the overview of the Long-Term Development Plan, Dr Isaac Mensah-Bonsu, Director, the NDPC said the role of the state and the private sector should be complementary since both are essential for the structural transformation of the national economy. He, however, stressed that, strategic areas where government interventions were particularly required included poverty reduction, employment creation and spatial equity. Source: GNA