The Executive Director of the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Sebastian Deh has underscored the need for government to pay much attention to technical and vocational training in the country.

According to him, technical and vocational education has the potential of stimulating the industrial and economic development of Ghana.

He noted that the technical vocational education is a pivotal basis training that helps to equip people to put to good use their God given talents.

But he bemoaned how technical and vocational training has been relegated to the background.

“Economic and industrial advancement has so far eluded us, even though for decades we have been aware that investing in quality technical and vocational education can lead to significant progress” he stressed.

Mr. Deh made the call at a stakeholders’ inception meeting with CADENA, a Netherlands based firm which has been contracted by COTVET, under the Ghana Skills and Technology Development Project (GSTDP) to support the development of COTVET’s technical capacity and strategic systems in driving the TVET reform agenda of Government.

The support is also aimed at building the capacity of selected TVET institutes to improve accountability and institutional effectiveness for industry demand driven skills training.

Mr. Deh informed the gathering, consisting of trade associations, professional bodies, policy bodies, and training providers that COTVET has in recent years achieved significant progress to drive activities in the TVET sector.

“The Council has among others reviewed the 2004 TVET policy, developed a National TVET Qualifications Framework, workplace experience learning policy and piloted programmes in Competency Based Training in three institutions”.

Mr. Deh added that CADENA is expected to work closely with stakeholders across the formal and informal sector to push further TVET reform in Ghana.