Ghana to Attain World Skills Int'l ?Membership Status

By Julius Yao Petetsi

Barring any last minute hitch, Ghana would in August, 2019, become a member of World Skills International.

World Skills International is the global hub of skills that raises the profile and recognition of skilled people through competition and show how important skills are in achieving economic growth.

If granted, Ghana, which is at the last lap of preparations for its membership status, would become the 81st nation of the global skills community.

At a meeting held in Accra, Wednesday, May 1, 2019, the President and Chair of the Board, World Skills, Simon Bartley, told Ghanaian skills experts that Ghana had only a step more to become a member of the group.

This step involves the selection of officials and Technical Delegates and their roles and responsibilities that will be expected of them at World Skills International General Assembly Meetings.

"Ghana will be the youngest member, joining as an Associate Member and will vote during the second round at the General Assembly Meeting in Kazan, Russia, in August, 2019," Mr. Bartley told the skills experts from diverse backgrounds.

The Executive Director of the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), Dr Fred Kyei Asamoah, told journalists in an interview after their engagement with Mr. Bartely that the idea of Ghana becoming a member of World Skills International was to follow up on what President Akufo-Addo talked about as Ghana being the center of excellence for technical and vocational education and training.

"Our membership at the World Skills International will mean that we will be competing with all the youth in the world about the latest or current skills that is in the world so that we don't just fall behind. The World Economic Forum talked about almost ten jobs that are going to be vanishing from the surface of the world.

"So being a member of World Skills means that Ghana will be competing not only within Ghana or Africa but competitive on the job market as far as the world is concerned," he noted.

According to him, all documentations coupled with the TVET transformation agenda; Cabinet approval for all TVET institutions to be re-aligned to one Ministry, ensuring standardisation in the country's TVET sector, the facilities that the government is putting in to support the upgrade of all TVET institutions, and the establishment of new TVET centers of excellence have made it possible for Ghana to join the World Skills International as a member.

"We believe that our membership to the World Skills competition within the next ten years should be able to change the face of skills development in the country.

The Group CEO FC Beauty College, Grace Amey-Obeng, commenting on the move initiated by the country said their experiences at the zonal, national and international levels, especially, the competition in Kigali, Rwanda, where a student of FC Beauty College won Silver in Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy, gave the country a lot of hope and also confirms that "we are on the right track" to joining World Skills International.

She was confident that Ghana competing at World Skills International would help bring it up to global standard, stressing that "Ghana joining will change the face of TVET because hitherto, we assume that technical and vocational education is for school drop outs.

"But the kind of high standards that the World Skills International brings to bear on skills training and development, believe me, we can only add value to the skills that are required for industries to grow," she stated.

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