The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called for increased government funding for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to expand access to skills development and support decent job creation in Ghana.  

The Acting Director of the Labour Research and Policy Institute of the TUC, Edmond Adinkra-Darko, said adequate funding was necessary to equip TVET institutions, improve training infrastructure and ensure that programmes responded to the needs of the labour market.  

He said the TUC was also advocating the restoration of Organised Labour’s representation on key statutory bodies responsible for education, skills development and employment-related policies.  

Mr Adinkra-Darko made the call at a research validation workshop on trade union participation in Ghana’s TVET system.  

He said the study assessed the extent to which trade unions had participated in the TVET system, particularly following reforms undertaken in 2020.  

He explained that prior to the reforms, organised labour was represented on several statutory bodies, including the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) and other related institutions.  

However, following the reforms, trade unions were no longer represented on some of the bodies on which they previously had seats.  

According to him, while the reforms helped reduce fragmentation and improve coordination within the TVET system, they also resulted in organised labour losing representation on important decision-making platforms.  

He said the TUC believed there were opportunities to re-establish its participation, beginning with engagement with the government and, where necessary, amendments to relevant legislation.  

Mr Adinkra-Darko cited provisions of the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020, and other legislation governing TVET and education-related institutions as areas requiring attention.  

He said organised labour’s absence from some of the governing structures was a concern because workers and their representatives had an important role to play in shaping skills development policies and ensuring that training responded to labour-market needs.  

For him, TVET remained an important avenue for addressing Ghana’s unemployment challenges and promoting inclusive economic transformation.  

He noted that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and other institutions had emphasised the importance of skills development, productivity and decent work in achieving inclusive economic transformation.  

Mr Adinkra-Darko said although Ghana had made progress in establishing a TVET system, inadequate funding remained a major constraint.  

He said TVET institutions were also unevenly distributed across the country, creating challenges for equitable access to skills training.  

According to him, TVET institutions were concentrated largely in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions, while some other regions had only a few accredited institutions.  

He said the situation meant that geographical location could limit opportunities for young people seeking technical and vocational training.  

The TUC official also raised concerns about the perception of TVET among sections of the Ghanaian public.  

He said TVET was often viewed as an option for students who could not gain admission to general education programmes, rather than as a valuable pathway for acquiring practical skills and entering decent employment.  

He called for efforts to change that perception and promote TVET as an important component of national skills development.  

Mr Adinkra-Darko further expressed concern about the supply-driven nature of some TVET programmes.  

He pointed out that inadequate funding could compel institutions to offer programmes based on the resources and equipment available to them rather than on skills demanded by the labour market.  

He said increased investment would enable institutions to offer programmes that were better aligned with industry and employment needs.  

The study also identified infrastructure and equipment gaps as challenges affecting the quality of TVET delivery.  

Mr Adinkra-Darko said some laboratories were poorly equipped or lacked necessary equipment, while some instructors needed additional training to deliver specialised programmes effectively.  

He, therefore, called for investment in infrastructure, equipment and continuous professional development for TVET instructors.  

The TUC also proposed stronger linkages between informal apprenticeship and Ghana’s formal certification system.  

Mr Adinkra-Darko said many people acquired valuable skills through informal apprenticeships but lacked formal certification to demonstrate their competencies.  

He noted that creating clear progression pathways through the TVET system could allow workers who acquired skills informally to have those competencies assessed and recognised.  

He stated that competency-based training and recognition of prior learning could provide a mechanism for certifying workers who had acquired practical experience outside the formal education system.  

“Somebody may have the competence, but without a certificate, we tend to degrade their person,” he said.  

Mr Adinkra-Darko said recognising and certifying skills acquired through informal apprenticeship could improve workers’ opportunities for progression and contribute to decent job creation.  

He urged the Government to provide adequate budgetary allocations to the TVET system while strengthening collaboration among government, employers, organised labour and training institutions.  

He was of the view that such collaboration would help ensure that Ghana’s TVET system produced the skills the economy requires and provided young people and workers with viable pathways to decent employment.