By Jesse Ampah Owusu
Accra, July 19, GNA – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) with support from the Republic of South Korea will be implementing a Better Education for Africa’s Rise (BEAR) Phase III in support of Ghana’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) rollout.
The four-year, 2023-2027, BEAR III project will also be implemented in three other West African Countries – Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and Sierra Leone.
Madam Gita Subrahmanyam, UNESCO Consultant on the project, at a stakeholder engagement, said the objective of the project was to give young people in beneficiary countries a better chance and access to decent employment to contribute to the socio-economic rise of their countries.
“More specifically, the project seeks to strengthen beneficiary countries’ TVET systems through targeted support focused on three key action areas.
The areas are making TVET relevant to the needs of the economy and the labour market, enhancing the quality of programmes and institutions, and improving perceptions of TVET among young people, enterprises, and society.
Madam Subrahmanyam said in line with the Government of Ghana’s request, the focus would be in the agricultural sector, with a view to expanding the achievements to other sectors.
She said the aim was for Ghana to enhance the agricultural value chain, while providing decent employment opportunities for the youth in agricultural mechanisation, post-harvest management, agro-processing and climate-smart agriculture.
Given its focus, she said, the project would in the long-term have positive impacts on Ghana’s agricultural sector productivity and profitability, food security, youth employment in the agricultural sector and household incomes of informal sector farm workers.
Madam Gifty Twum Ampofo, a Deputy Minister of Education with special focus on TVET, said TVET education was the country’s best bet for socio-economic development.
She said the various support the sector was receiving both locally and internationally was testament to the importance of TVET to the country’s economic and social development.
The Deputy Education Minister said she was happy the project was focused on agricultural TVET, saying it would develop the interest of the youth in the agricultural value chain.
GNA