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The British Council has launched an initiative to equip young people in the Northern, North East and Savannah Regions with vocational and other demand-driven skills to respond to the labour market needs and enhance their employability.
Dubbed: "Vocational Education Training (VET) Toolbox", the initiative seeks to establish and pilot a framework for developing skilled human resources in line with investment needs and employment.
It would also stimulate vocational education training reform by capturing lessons learned and promoting good practice models for skills development in the agriculture sector.
The €1.15m project is co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Speaking at the launch of the project in Tamale, the Country Director of British Council in Ghana, Nii Doodo Dodoo, said the two-year project would help address the unemployment situation in the country.
He emphasised the need to invest in vocational education to create opportunities for young people to thrive, saying equipping the youth with the necessary skills and knowledge would better prepare them to contribute to the growth and development of the nation.
Nii Dodoo said “the VET Toolbox project will enhance decent work and inclusive growth by providing people with the knowledge, skills, and competencies required for the jobs of today and tomorrow".
For his part, the Team Leader for the VET Toolbox initiative in Ghana, Abraham Sarfo, said they were collaborating with key local stakeholders to ensure that the project was tailor-made to meet the country’s skills and job challenges.
The Programme Officer, Macro-economic and Trade Section of the European Union in Ghana, Marta Brignone, indicated that Ghana was one of 11 sub-Saharan countries that were benefiting from the new pillar of the VET Toolbox.
She said the VET Toolbox was an international facility aimed to improve the effectiveness of VET systems by making them more opportunity-driven, turning investments into drivers for inclusive economic growth, social development, and decent job creation
The Director-General of Ghana Technical Vocational Education Training Service (TVETS), Mawusi Awity, commended the British Council and its partners for the project and said it would help strengthen the capacity of vocational institutions to better train young people to create their own jobs.
