Accra, Feb. 11, GNA—The Design and Technology Institute (DTI), a technical/vocational training institution with focus on young people, on Thursday launched the Precision Quality Training Programme (PQ) to equip artisans with the requisite knowledge and skills to meet globally accepted industry standards.
The training programme, was designed and developed in partnership with industry experts and received accreditation from the Council for Technical and Vocational Education Training (COTVET).
It forms part of DTI’s partnership agreement with the MasterCard Foundation and will create 40,000 direct and indirect work opportunities for young people within the next three years.
The project will provide training to 1000 youth in precision fabrication and enhance the competency-based learning of selected Technical Universities in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to reach 5000 students.
Furthermore, it will train 5000 Master Craft Persons (MCPs) in precision quality as well as 1000 Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) to improve their work skills and practices to meet global industry standards.
The training will be carried out through the « TransformingYouth VET livelihoods for sustainable jobs » intervention project under the Mastercard Foundation’s « Young Africa Works” (YAW) initiative.
Ms Constance Elizabeth Swaniker, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DTI, said it was important that effective policies were developed by industry stakeholders to facilitate the transition of young people from education and training to the work field.
She called on the academia, industry, policy makers and the artisan community to work as a team for the implementation of the policies.
The CEO reiterated DTI’s commitment to continue developing programmes that would set students apart in the industry and create jobs for the youth.
“Solving the issue of youth unemployment on the African continent is key to poverty reduction. It is possible to eradicate poverty, not as a dream, but because we have the right tools and materials to achieve that,” she said.
Professor Ben Q. Honyenuga, Vice-Chancellor of Ho Technical University, said TVET and skills training were the future for economic growth in Ghana and Africa because of the employment potential.
He urged stakeholders in academia to partner institutions like DTI to develop programmes that supported employment creation for the youth.
Professor Hoenyenuga appealed to stakeholders in TVET to focus on developing quality educational programmes to equip the youth with the right skills and create the enabling environment for them to set up their own businesses.
He said the youth had the ability to lead an economic recovery process in Ghana and Africa as a whole and leverage technology to connect with the market and expand it.
Mrs Karen Halm, Principal Architect/CEO, Spektra Global Limited, said for training on PQ to be effective, it was important that artisans revisited the concept of accuracy.
She explained that accuracy meant the degree of correctness to an established truth, whereas precision was the repeatability of one’s level of accuracy.
Thus, industry players needed to work on their level of accuracy in every given field of work so that they could achieve precision.
She said for Ghana to improve on PQ, citizens had to first impart the right attitude in children so that they would grow up with a mentality of precision quality.
“When your child comes to you wearing a belt twisted around his waist but you overlook it and tell him that it doesn’t matter, this same son of yours will grow up dressing in that same indecent manner. But when you correct them while they are young and malleable, you will succeed in fixing this problem even before it starts. This is how the problem of precision quality can be fixed,” she said.
She said to ensure PQ, industry players also needed to employ well trained artisans and use the right equipment to a touch of class.
