Successful Advisory: First TVET report published in Ghana

The Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (CTVET) presented Ghana’s first TVET report at a festive ceremony in Accra on 25 August in the presence of Ghanaian Minister of Education Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum. The “TVET Report 2021” is the first systematic report on technical and vocational education and training in Ghana and delivers fundamental data on the education system.

This marks the achievement of a central milestone in dedicated bilateral cooperation between Ghana and Germany for the structural support of the Ghanaian vocational education and training system. In mid-2019, the then Ghanaian Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, and the former German Minister of Education, Anja Karliczek, signed a Joint Declaration of Intent in Accra. This declaration revolved around strengthening cooperation in vocational education and training. Following on from that, the two sides laid down the priority areas for the cooperation: firstly the area of TVET reporting and TVET monitoring, and secondly the area of organisational development advisory services, where the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded a series of advisory workshops on organisational development from 2020 to 2022 for two key departments at CTVET. In mid-2021, a further area of cooperation was added as the next development step for Ghanaian TVET: advisory services for implementing a dual vocational education and training system.

GOVET has closely supported the creation of the TVET report since 2020. In weekly virtual sessions, a dedicated team from CTVET has continually worked on the report with the support of GOVET. Altogether, more than 20 employees from the Commission for TVET have contributed to the report as authors, in data collection and data analysis. CTVET has systematically collected its own data among 85 private and state training institutes for the first time. Before, it had only selectively collected data as part of projects with international partners. The draft of the report was presented to various TVET stakeholders at a validation workshop in October 2021 and was subsequently finalised.

Here are the most important findings of the report:

• There are 238 public TVET institutes in the pre-tertiary sector, all of which now formally report to the Ministry of Education following the latest educational reforms.
• The number of TVET students has risen from 25,000 in 2015 to around 100,000 in 2020 (separate figures for women and men are not yet available). Most of them were enrolled at institutes belonging to the Ghana Education Service and the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI). Now, all the institutes come under the umbrella of the TVET Service, which is assigned to the Ministry of Education.
• Around 53,000 students, around 40% of them women, are enrolled in the tertiary sector (at the country’s ten technical universities).
• Of the 22 planned Sector Skill Bodies (SSB), which act as private-sector advisory bodies for TVET, 11 have been established up to now (in the areas of pharmaceuticals, automotive, oil & gas, renewable energy, textiles, health care, IT, logistics & transport, agriculture, construction and tourism & hospitality); 44 training curricula have already been developed or modernised here (as of the beginning of 2022).
• Although funding for TVET has greatly increased since 2018 – to almost GHC 1.9 million in 2021 – the institutes continue to face various challenges. More than half of the TVET institutes are striving to generate their own income.

This first report contains basic information, which is to be increasingly expanded over the next few years. The aim is to be able to provide a comprehensive data analysis of the TVET system in Ghana. With facts and figures on TVET in Ghana, stakeholders will be able to make better decisions with regard to the future orientation of the system. Based on regular reporting, it will be possible to detect trends at an early stage and identify any need for adjustment.

In September 2022, GOVET is welcoming a delegation from Ghana at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) with the aim of further expanding cooperation in the area of TVET reporting. A particular emphasis will be placed on dialogue with a large number of experts from BIBB, as well as from other research institutes. CTVET has a great interest in continuing to perform its own surveys and to conduct research on the TVET system in Ghana in the future.

Thanks to the cooperation in TVET reporting, GOVET at BIBB has succeeded, on behalf of BMBF, in laying sound foundations for cooperation with the Ministry of Education in Ghana and the Commission for TVET (CTVET). Since the spring of 2022, CTVET has already been working with support from GOVET on the second report, which is due for publication in 2023.