The 2022 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates have been advised to be guided by the country’s current unemployment situation and select more Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programmes during the selection of their programmes.
This, according to Mr Jacob Essilfie Taylor, the guidance and counseling coordinator at the Mfantseman Municipal Education Directorate in the Central Region, would among other things, enhance the students employment opportunities after completing secondary school.
He gave the advice when addressing a section of BECE Candidates at a senior high school selection briefing seminar organized by the Boys and Girls Club of Ghana at Anomabo.
According go him, he could not in anyway force students to choose programmes “but could only advise them to do so following a pronouncement by the finance minister that the payroll was chocked”.
“Our finance minister made it clear that our payroll is chocked and this is a signal to us that all of us cannot be employed by the government so what we have to do is to encourage skill training where most of our students can go into such programmes and at the end of the day there would be options for the student to choose from. It’s either you employ yourselves or employed by the government”.
“Currently, most of our students who graduate from nursing and other institutions are all looking up to the government because they don’t have any TVET training to create employment for themselves so I’ll entreat you all to attach importance to skill training. You know as counselors we do not force so I’m not forcing you; I’m just encouraging you to select TVET programmes so that if you’re not employed by the government, you can establish your own companies and even employ others”, Mr Taylor explained
According to him, government had as of 2021 added 139 TVET schools to the mainstream schools which brought the total number of TVET institutions in the country to 186 and been harmonized to the free SHS programme.
He therefore dismissed the assertion that TVET programmes were meant for dull students, saying “those tags are false, it’s never true, in fact TVET graduates now, unlike before, have future. One can now rise through from National proficiency 1 to PhD ie Doctor of Technology”.
Mr Essilfie Taylor therefore took the candidates through the dos and don’ts in school placement selection.
He however charged headteachers, teachers and counselors to assist the final year students in the selection process.
The purpose of the seminar according to the club’s Executive Director, Mr Isaac Kweku Quainoo, was to assist the candidates to better understand how schools and programmes were selected at the basic school level and to acquaint themselves with the Computerized School Selection Placement System (CSSPS).
Source: Gnewsprime.com/Kojo Ata Kakrah Abrowah (KAKA)// anthonyabrowah@gmail.com
Photo credit: IkekuQ photos
