Akufo-Addo Wants Ghana To Be Skills Development Centre

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said he wants to leave a mark by making Ghana a world-class centre for skills development.

“We want to emphasize the importance of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and make Ghana the leading country in TVET in Africa,” he stressed.

Addressing the 110th anniversary celebration of Ghana Secondary Technical School (GSTS) in Takoradi on Saturday under the theme, “110 Years of Creativity in Secondary and Technical Education: Prospect and Challenges in Nation Building,” the President bemoaned the fact that most technical schools in the country did not have laboratories and workshops for the practical components of the courses the students pursue.

“It is in the laboratories and workshops that young people get the opportunity to expand their imagination and develop the skills that would equip them for the modern world,” he said, adding “we are putting together policies that will enhance the education of our people to drive the industrialization process.”

He said “this means there must be emphasis on science, technology, technical and vocational education.”

The President told the gathering that the government was tackling the perennial infrastructure problems of the TVET sector, saying “we shall be able to transform the country’s economy and reduce unemployment when we pay attention to technical and vocational education.”

Regional Minister

Western Regional Minister Kwanena Okyere Darko-Mensah said the Free Senior High School policy had come to provide unhindered access to secondary school education to every eligible Ghanaian child.

He said for the past two years, a total of 32 projects had been undertaken in the region with GSTS benefiting from a two-storey dormitory block which is under construction.

Headmaster

The Headmaster of the school, Samuel Essel, mentioned that the school needed a 66-seater bus and expansion of the school dining hall and indicated that some of the old blocks of the school needed renovation, as well as fence wall for the school.

New Assembly Hall

The President later commissioned a new assembly hall complex and a dormitory block for GSTS which were stalled in 2016 but were expeditiously completed in furtherance of the Free SHS policy.