The Most Reverend Alfred Agyenta, Bishop of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Catholic Diocese, has called on the government and stakeholders in education to focus more on technical education.
He noted that technical education, when given the needed attention would be the only avenue to train the teeming youth to provide qualified skilled personnel who would create jobs for themselves and not wait on government for white-colour jobs.
The Bishop said this in a speech read for him by the Very Revered Father Robert Laar, Parish Priest of the Saint Anthony of Padua Parish in Bawku, at the launch of the 50th anniversary of the Bawku Technical Institute in Bawku in the Upper East Region.
It was under the theme “The Role of Technical Education in an Era of Increasing Graduate Unemployment in Ghana”.
Bishop Agyenta said technical education was established to provide skilled trained human capital to generate resources for the development of the country, but this aim had been diverted to different areas.
He said most technical institutions such as the polytechnics and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology had diverted from their main courses.
This, he said, was the major cause for the lack of technical experts in the country and the increasing unemployment.
He said technical and vocational education was an important catalyst for economic transformation, as it prepared middle level professionals and equipped them with the requisite competence for positions in various sectors of the socio-economic life.
Bishop Agyenta said the youth had to be educated to accept technical training and acquire skills that would enable them to gain employment instead of depending on government.
Dr Robert Baba Kugnaab-Lem, Upper East Deputy Regional Minister, gave the assurance of government’s commitment to focusing its attention on technical and vocational education in the country in recognition of their role in the development of the country.
Dr Kugnaab-Lem noted that government, over the years, had implemented a number of interventions in technical and vocational education.
He called on parents to change their current negative attitude towards vocational and technical education as it would help their wards to gain employable skills to enable them to compete in the job market.
Mr Paul Kowono Atogebania, Principal of the Institute, said it was founded in 1967 by the Catholic missionaries with 18 students to train in motor vehicle mechanics and was later absorbed by government in 1973 with additional ten technical and vocational based courses.
He said the institute ran two examinational bodies which included the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Professional Technical Examination (NAPTEX).
He called on the government to assist the school to fence its compound, as its land was being encroached upon by settlers in the area.
Source: GNA/NewsGhana.com.gh
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