Zambaga Rufai Saminu
23 June 2011
The Takoradi branch of the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) is suffering from lack of adequate infrastructure.
The institute, which was established to provide skills training for unskilled Ghanaian youth, currently lacks adequate facilities to spearhead training programmes.
The school, which was established in 1998, has seen no renovation for nearly 13 years of its existence.
In addition to this problem, authorities in the school say they have had to battle with inadequate classroom blocks and hostels to accommodate the growing number of students seeking admission, which in effect, had made teaching and learning very tedious.
Due to the aforementioned challenges, the authorities said they had to take a painful decision of converting the general workshop into block classrooms to address the shortage of classrooms.
They told The Chronicle they had to do that to partly address the immediate challenges confronting the school.
In an interview with the Centre Manager, Mr. Francis Aristotle Gyimah, he said because of inadequate classrooms, the general workshop had to be converted without delay to serve as a classroom block in order to accommodate the growing number of students.
He explained that the general workshop building, which had been converted to serve multiple purposes, had to be divided to serve as a workshop for the various courses, and at the same time a classroom block.
“During practical lessons, fumes cover all over the rooms, especially, the welding and fabrication classes, and this does not enhance proper ventilation,” he noted.
Apart from infrastructure deficit, Mr. Gyimah indicated that the equipment being used in the school to train the students was inadequate. “These equipments are mainly used for practicals, and yet they are insufficient,” he bemoaned.
The Manager explained that apart from the equipment being inadequate, they were also obsolete, and simply excruciating to use, adding that the same machines had been used over the years to train the students. “They are difficult to operate, making the work very tough for the students,” Mr. Gyimah said regretfully.
The Vocational Training Centre Manager hopes the government and stakeholders in the education sector would rush to the aid of the school and support them with infrastructure, provide them with new and modern equipment in order to assist the students acquire the necessary skills required to be able to work effectively after their training programmes.
The manager also bemoaned the lack of adequate tutors in the school to help take care of the huge numbers of students, disclosing: “For three years now, there has been no teacher for Electricals, but the equipment are there,” he stated, as he continued to express worry.
He further disclosed the lack of adequate teaching materials for core subjects in the school, which is making the teaching of such subjects, including English, Mathematics and Entrepreneurship, very difficult. “Due to this problem, the parents are encouraged to buy the books for their children,” he underscored.
Mr. Gyimah also confirmed that, the school, which started with only 99 students, now has 634 and properly admitted to pursue various courses with 154 in level one,151 in level two, 178 in level three and 151 in level four.
On their part, he said, the authorities in the school had not reneged on their responsibility of ensuring proper management of the available resources. “By the help of the Internally Generated Fund (IGF) management was able to finance the Information Communication Technology (ICT) and the security man. However, the ICT centre was also built with the help of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA),” Mr. Gyimah added.
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Taken from:
Ghana: NVTI Suffering Lack of Infrastructure