The world is moving away from certificate to skills – Dr Bawumia

Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has said there is a surge in preference for skills to certificate globally.

“Today, in the world, we are seeing a movement away from a world of certificate to a world of skills. The certificate only matters fundamentally in this new world if they allow you to perform certain skills or you bring certain skills with it.”

He said this while addressing at the Accra Technical Training Center’s launch of the Ghana Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Service. The event, which took place on Tuesday, was titled “Stirring Ghana’s Industrialization Drive Through Skill Acquisition for National Development.”

According to the Vice President, the country’s progress is predicated on the mix of its people resources and technology. He claims that an individual’s skills, along with technology, improve the returns on investment.

According to him, actual data in the area of economics reveals that natural resources alone do not ensure a country’s success. “We have all known in economics that if you look at the empirical evidence about what makes countries grow and develop, we know it is not gold, diamond, oil or cocoa for that matter. It is not natural resources.

The evidence is very clear that it is human capital – human resources that drive growth and technology. Because the combination of human capital and technology produces increase in returns to investment in any economy that drives growth,” he said.

The Vice President said that the Akufo-Addo administration is focusing on human capital and technology as a means of modernizing the nation. He said that this is because the government’s Ghana Beyond Aid strategy can only be realized if the young are “equipped with competitive skills and are introduced to various skill-related careers.” Dr. Bawumia said that the government would create the country’s first second cycle TVET Applied Technology High School.

He said that the development of this facility is part of the government’s objective to put Ghana’s TVET centers among the finest in Sub-Saharan Africa. “We’re going to establish the first-ever second cycle TVET Applied Technology High School across the country.

The programmes to be offered at the Applied Technology High School will be designed as career-based technical education which integrates career and technical education with a rigorous academic core and industry participation,” the Vice President noted.

Source: Myjoyonline