Gov’t launches 5-yrs TVET Policy Plan

The Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MYS) Tuesday, May 26 launched a five-year Technical and Vocational Educational Training or TVET policy plan for young people in the country.

The ministry says it’s time that young people in every part of Liberia get involved in both vocational and technical schools to empower themselves with employment skills.

Speaking during the launch, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Lenn Eugene Nagbe, said the policy plan is to help the youth acquire various skills, stressing that Liberia’s growth strategy as espoused by the Agenda for Transformation calls for the development, harnessing and supply of demand driven skills for the country’s formal sector.

Minister Nagbe said such development can only be realized through a well structured and thoroughly dispensing mechanism that is pinned in detail pillars with clearly defined objectives.

TVET is meant to provide young people necessary technical and vocational training that will benefit their lives.

According to the Youth and sports Minister, in 2014 an Inter-Ministerial TVET Taskforce was formed by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to develop a comprehensive plan, with the sole aim of achieving sector goals enshrined in the Agenda for Transformation.

He added that all efforts were pumped towards deriving a comprehensive strategy that is aimed at solving issue bordering on complexities of the current TVET management structures and regulatory responsibilities through a commission to avoid segmentation of training curriculums, mainstreaming gender in the delivery of vocational and technical training, amongst other interventions.

Minister Nagbe narrated that the major weakness of the TVET system has been the absence of a comprehensive national TVET policy and legal framework and coordinating agency to guide, direct, and oversee TVET for the country, as a result, the TVET delivery system is fragmented among several government ministries, and agencies.

He said the strategic policy goal of the policy is to reposition TVET as a vehicle for promoting access to quality skills training, stimulating economic growth, creating sustainable employment, and reducing poverty, the MYS boss noted that the policy seeks to create a flexible human capacity development system that equips youth and adults for the world of work is labour market responsive, ensures soft, social skills to sustain employment and fosters a high skilled workforce that will support national growth. Edited by Jonathan Browne