The City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development (CSD) and the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) Ghana have officially released their TVET report, From Prejudice to Prestige: Vocational Education and Training in Ghana. This closely follows the Kenya TVET report produced by GESCI and the Ministry for Higher Education Science and Technology which is the first comprehensive survey of the complexities of ICT deployment in TVET institutions in Kenya. Technical and Vocational Education and Training is receiving increasing attention from many African governments. This trend is affirmed not just by these two recent reports but also by the African Union which put youth empowerment under the spotlight at the AU’s 17th annual summit. The statistics provide one indication of why technical vocational education and training is receiving so much attention. With governments seeking to achieve their respective Visions (2030 in the case of Kenya, and 2020 in the case of Ghana) TVET institutions have been identified as ideal conduits for the creation of a skilled labour force that can make critical contributions to economic growth, which is a requisite for the development of middle income economies and a knowledge society. In addition, and as the COVET report warns the Ghanaian government, if governments don’t start recognising TVET’s role in economic and social development, a lack of skills will ultimately have serious consequences for economic growth. Despite the neglect that TVET institutions have suffered over the years and the ensuing ‘underachiever’ stigma attached to students who attend TVET institutions as the COTVET report reveals, the fact remains that average unemployment rates in Africa among TVET graduates are far below those of university graduates and this is something governments are eager to take advantage of. It’s an advantage that they can’t afford to waste with average graduate (TVET and university combined) unemployment in SSA due to peak at 50% by 2020. Such a situation will have not only dire economic consequences for many African countries but could be a harbinger of further social and political unrest with disaffected youth with qualifications languishing in poverty with no immediate prospect of employment on the horizon. After all it’s not just autocratic and kleptocratic governments that incite citizens to take their woes to the streets in mass protest. The yawning gap between the Kenyan elite (about 1% of Kenyans judging from salary structures in the formal sector), the middle class (about 10% and growing) and the rest of the population is a stark forecast of dark days to come. Even in the face of continued economic growth (some of which will be eroded by increases in the cost of fuel and food) the increasing lack of job opportunities for a majority youth population (60% of Africans are between 15 and 25 years old) will no doubt lead to further trouble for governments if decisive steps are not taken to turn education systems in Sub Saharan Africa into viable mechanisms for the cultivation of relevant and required skills for the new Millennium. It is a pivotal task and one in which ICT must play a crucial role. And therein lies part of the problem. An article in today’s Kenya Daily Nation revealed some of the findings of the Kenya TVET report:
www.standardmedia.co.ke/sciencetech/InsidePage.php Part of the article typically focuses on technology deployment as a solution to the beleaguered TVET sector - this time a Safaricom and Equity bank initiative to assist students to buy laptops. Such initiatives must be encouraged but as the article also points out, the panacea to the problems faced by a neglected technical vocational and education training system is not ICT acquisition. The problem is infact multifaceted and includes a lack of formal ICT policy, ICT work plans or ICT guidelines at TVET institutions. Institutional support mechanisms for ICT usage and deployment of ICT are lacking. Facilitation of virtual learning environments or using ICT to develop students’ 21st Century skills is not yet common practice. Many institutions continue to rely mainly on traditional non-ICT resources in their course delivery since modern ICT tools are either not available or not plentiful enough. While some institutions have Internet access it is not always available or available to everyone. Technology provision is greatly hampered by issues related to access in the form of infrastructural resources provision; currency of the resources (hardware and software); scheduling of access to technology; decentralization of resources within the institution to increase access for students other than those taking the ICT course; and increased access during students free time to allow individualized learning. Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) are not widely used in TIVET institutions and there is no guideline governing their use. Data and information required for planning remains scarce. Lecturer motivation for acquiring technology and occupational literacy to use ICT at a functional and practice level is integral to enhancing their professionalism and coursework delivery. However there is little focus in the findings on the potential use of ICT as an instructional tool or the pedagogical integration of ICT for enhancing TIVET course delivery in a proactive and responsive manner. There is a need to define the important teacher technology competencies for ICT integration as an instructional tool so as to avoid limiting the effective integration of ICT in TIVET provision. And the last statement is probably the most decisive, because as we never tire of saying at GESCI – put the teacher first and the rest will follow. A look at any of the papers in Kenya on any given day will tell you about teacher shortages, teacher salaries, and teacher grievances, but there is little in there about teacher training and its central role in the modernisation of the Kenyan Education System and other SSA education systems that are in a similar situation. Some of the poor results in secondary schools should suggest in themselves that there is something wrong with the teacher education system, when 61% of secondary schools graduates in Gatundu North District are scoring a D+ and lower in their secondary school certificate examinations. Fortunately governments are recognising the role technical vocational education and training can play in developing high capital middle income economies. Because while a projected 34 million middle class Africans by 2030 might sound like a lot, that still leaves hundreds of millions of Africans reconciled to a less fortunate set of statistics. By Niamh Brannigan Download the Ghana COTVET Report http://www.gesci.org/assets/files/COTVET%20report.pdf Download the Kenya TVET Report