President Nana Akufo-Addo
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.
