Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has called for a top off adjustment of the nation’s National Apprenticeship Programme (NAP) to make it more comprehensive, based on climate conditions and digitally focused.
Kofi Asare.

The Executive Director of Eduwatch, stated that, the present-day internship scenery was out of date and unconnected from the actuality of the modern era job market, again saying that most training centres have a need of modernized equipment and had not maintained the same speed with advancement in green and digital equipment.
He called for when presenting at a conference with the theme “Young People’s Forum on the National Apprenticeship Programme, organised in Accra.

The NAP, not long ago inaugurated by President John Dramani Mahama, is a government scheme to give training to over Ten thousand young Ghanaians in hands-on, work-readiness skills through standardized and well organised internships. It objective is to promote internships, decrease the rate of youth unemployment, and contributing to Ghana’s industrial development by reaching across the breathing space in the middle of education and the job market.
This scheme harmonizes with other youth-focused initiatives such as the Adwumawura Initiative and the One Million Coders project, all intended to emancipate the youth and advance economic stability.

The forum, organised in collaboration with Oxfam in Ghana and FOSDA, brought together youth groups to contribute to the ongoing national dialogue on transforming apprenticeship training.
It presented a meeting where young people3 cooperated , which Eduwatch plotted to give to lawmakers. Mr Asare mentioned that the internship scheme must be on purposely remodeled to advance gender-free access and make sure individuals with disabilities are involved. He mentioned that, “At the present moment 74 per cent of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) registration are male, and gender trade stereotypes continues”.

Addressing green skills, the EduWatch boss stated that only 25.6 per cent of approved TVET students were informed of green skills, in spite of a progress in request for work in sectors such as waste recycling, sustainable agriculture and solar energy. He requested beneficiaries to combine preservation of environment into all vocational curriculum and advance environmental friendly trade such as climate-smart farming and eco-construction. “Eco-friendly trades not only create employment but also improve adaptive capacity” he added.

On digital transformation, Mr Asare disclosed that only 20 per cent of TVET students were digitally equipped, in addition that work-based learning often needed digital resources attributable to high data costs, limited devices and poor internet access. For that reason, he suggested the initiation of mobile engagement, educational videos, and hybrid learning to update training. “Agri-tech platforms, Digital tailoring, and mobile repair are just a few examples of trades that must be digitally permitted.”