DRAFT TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND ...

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Excerpt No. 3: Catering
It is very disappointing to note that NVTI Grade I and II trainees don’t know
basic things like using a metal spoon in stirring in a metal bowl. They are so
deficient that Landing Restaurant has made it a policy not to accept them for
attachment.
Excerpt No. 4: Building Construction
The trainees don’t know how to read drawings because the trainees claim that
they are not taught in schools. The trainees don’t know markings and also
don’t know how to make profile. Other areas that trainees are lacking are
block laying, plastering and training institution have to do more work on
finishing touches.
Excerpt No. 5: Tile Laying
I found out that all those working on Tile Laying on the construction site are
from Togo and talked to some of them. He says that sub-contractors come to
Togo to recruit them. When they complete their assignment, they go back to
Togo. When I asked the Supervisor why they prefer to recruit people from
Togo for tile laying in Ghana, he said that Ghanaians don’t accept what they
pay them per square metre. The Togolese will accept the terms, and do the
work well on time also.
The use of Competency-Based Training (CBT) approaches in TVET has been seen as the
main way of correcting the mismatch and is entrenched in the national TVET policy.
Structured and universal industrial attachment (or work-based learning) is another approach
that has been embraced by training institutions and industry as a way of bridging the supplydemand
mismatch, and negotiations as well as pilot studies are being undertaken to formalize
industrial attachment.
The TVET community has been sensitized to the need for tracer studies and the broader
concept of monitoring post-graduation experiences of TVET graduates but the resources and
capacity for execution are generally lacking. This study landed on only one tracer study
conducted by NVTI with technical and financial assistance of JICA. Some highlights of the
findings and conclusions of the tracer study (Nakanishi, 2006) are as follows:
(a) In reality, “it is very difficult for them [trainee graduates] to find a permanent job, a parttime
job, or a temporary job.”
(b) 63.7% of respondents [500] were able to start a new business less than 6 months after
training; 56.9% of those self-employed employ from one to five employees with a
maximum of 25 employees.
(c) About one out of four (25%) want to become an entrepreneur instead of being employed;
(d) 50% of those interviewed said financial problems were the most difficult when they
started self-employment; next was how to obtain efficient and useful tools or machinery.
41% said what they needed were tools or machinery and 38% needed financial assistance.
(e) As many as 65.5% gave vague answers about career advice. Career advice seems to be a
very difficult question for Ghanaians and that means that “vocational education is not so
familiar to parents, relatives, or superiors.”
(f) Labour force demand for the manufacturing sector is weak. The service sector, especially
the whole and retail sectors are growing.
One significant recommendation made by Nakanishi (2006) was that “as the labour market is
difficult, it is important for trainees to decide what they want to do after training as soon as
possible.” This means that trainees or students should be made aware of the realities of the