Don’t shy away from selecting TVET institutions – Deputy Education Minister

Deputy Minister of Education in Charge of Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Gifty Twum Ampofo, is urging brilliant students who recently wrote the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) not to shy away from selecting TVET institutions as their school of choice.

Currently, the 2023 batch of BECE candidates are engaged in the school selection process, which began on August 23 and is expected to end on September 4, according to a statement from the Ghana Education Service.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Association of Technical Universities and Polytechnics in Africa conference, the Deputy Minister said the era where students perceived to be not academically brilliant were made to attend TVET institutions is over.

She explained that modern equipment being used at educational facilities can cause harm to persons without the requisite knowledge of its operations.

“I am very confident to say that, for Ghana, we are getting TVET right. So we want to partner with the media to support us with advocacy for students who are now selecting their programmes for second cycle schools to select TVET areas, especially the very smart and serious ones. We have lived beyond the days when we thought that those who don’t want to be serious should go and do TVET. No, with the modern equipment we use, if you cannot be serious, you will have your head chopped off by the machines you will use.”

“If you visit any technical university and if you visit the traditional universities, you will prefer to go to a technical university, because they are well-equipped and well-laid out,” the Deputy Minister of Education in Charge of TVET stated.

The in-school showing of the selection guidelines video started from August 21 to August 25, 2023.

The selection of schools, which started on August 23, will end on September 4, 2023, across regional, district education directorates and schools.