This article is predicated on the political analysis of skills and their implications for development. Skills planning is crucial yet complex, complicated by factors like climate change and Artificial Intelligence.
The definition of skills varies between workers and employers, embedded in industrial relations. Skills planning and their mode of acquisition are essential for development, but tensions exist between occupation-specific and general portable skills. Special attention is therefore needed in skills planning for labour market inclusion in the digital space.
The relationship between education and work is similarly complex, with distinct knowledge and utilization in different social spheres. Vocational curricula must balance conceptual and practical knowledge to cater to both further study and employability. Decision-making is challenging for education and training authorities due to the complex relationship between competent practice and knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Overemphasis on skills might be oversimplified or misguided, with conceptual deficiencies in the human capital notion and difficulty in measuring returns on education. Competency-based training reforms and occupational standards often fail to achieve their objectives due to the close, intricate relationship between competent practice and knowledge, skills, and abilities, though intended to close the gap.
Transition from Education to Work
The transition from education to work involves complex relationships between educational programmes and their destinations: institutional arrangements (labour market arrangements, information, and advice systems), curriculum content (relevance and alignment with industry needs), and qualification systems (recognition and valuation of skills and knowledge).
These factors interact to facilitate or hinder the transition of individuals from education to work. The “Challenging the Skills Fetish” perspective argues that education policy discourse overly focuses on skills, assuming they are the solution to various social, economic, and personal issues, while neglecting the complexity of the relationship between education and work.
This perspective suggests that skills are crucial for national economic prosperity and the competitiveness of a company’s profitability, individual employability, career advancement, and personal growth. It also highlights the limitations and flaws in this arrangement, including conceptual deficiencies in the human capital notion, difficulty in measuring the “capital” obtained through education, and its returns.
Competing in today’s global economy requires more than just specific occupational skills, eg, programming, electrical work, and digital marketing. A flexible workforce that can adapt to rapid shifts in demand is also vital. Planning and investing in skills is crucial for economic growth and competitiveness.
To achieve this, economies need to build education systems that focus on producing young people with strong foundational skills and specific job-related skills with the underpinning knowledge. Reskilling and upskilling tools and structures are crucial for post-pandemic recovery and adaptation to automation and the digital environment.
The Global Skills Report (2021) highlights the pandemic’s devastating impact on the global economy, with 255 million full-time job losses and $3.7 trillion in income losses in 2020. This crisis underscores the need for policymakers to understand the skills driving sustainable employment and economic growth. The report emphasises that the moment presents an opportunity to build more inclusive, modern, and scalable education systems.
The report further recognises reskilling as a crucial intervention post-pandemic because of the impact of automation on millions of workers, necessitating innovative private-public reskilling solutions. Private-public partnership collaborations can improve livelihoods and local economies as societies shift to a more digital and sustainable future.
Skills can drive competitiveness, innovation, and equity, but the demand for specific skills depends on the local content of specific needs by industry.
The Ghanaian Context
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Ghana takes two forms: formal TVET, made up of public and private provision, and non-formal TVET, largely made up of apprenticeships. Some researchers argue that the largest provider of skills training is the informal apprenticeship system.
However, TVET is often associated with the outcome of formal public TVET, even though the sector is responsible for less than 10 per cent of the technical and vocational skills acquired in Ghana; the majority of TVET provision is through informal apprenticeships. While 45% of Junior High School students transition to the Senior High School, only 3% of them transition to the TVET institutions. This development has implications for industrialisation and development.
The labour market in Ghana’s industrial development trajectory is characterised by challenges of employment instability, erratic job creation, and increased informality. Formal technical and vocational education and training have the potential to fill the gap, but need revitalization.
Studies are yet to be conducted and documented on how industries are impacted by TVET. However, this is normally done at stakeholder evaluation meetings at the sectoral levels. Though the evidence is there to show the extent to which policies, systems, and interventions are having on anticipated skills, evidence shows transformational, consolidation, and legal reforms, but has not been documented. Recent educational reforms have considered TVET critical, but more needs to be done to strengthen this component.
Formal TVET in Ghana: Challenges and Opportunities
Formal Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Ghana has significant potential to address post-COVID skill gaps. The relationship between industry and TVET provision is facilitated by sector skills bodies, which develop qualifications, competencies, and standards for industry.
While greening and digitisation concepts are integrated into the curriculum, there are challenges in recognising migrants under the National Qualification Framework. Similarly, limited resources hinder the integration of new qualifications into formal TVET programs.
Not only did the pandemic post but present opportunities to identify new programs to be developed in response to job market needs, and further studies to assess the impact of TVET provision on industries. Despite efforts to reform TVET, more work is needed to fully document achievements and conduct studies on the impacts of TVET provision on industries.
Competency-Based Training (CBT) was introduced in Ghana in 2000 to bridge the gap between education and training and industry. Its implementation was, however, limited, covering only a small percentage of TVET institutions and programmes, five training programmes, and mostly the first two levels of certification (Proficiency Level 1 and Level 2).
The programme was introduced in the Higher Training institutions (Technical universities) in Ghana to provide graduates with the appropriate knowledge and skills to efficiently perform workplace roles in industry and administration. To be more specific, the curriculum emphasised underpinning knowledge and on-the-job training.
A study examined the relationship between mid-level technical skills providers and the demands of core technical jobs in Ghana’s oil and gas industry.
The scholarship drew on the political economy of skills literature and education-work literature, concluding that: 1) Ghana did not plan for mid-level skills required by the upstream oil and gas companies, as these skills were not traditional in Ghana’s education and training institutions prior to the oil find.
2) Despite the establishment of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in 1983 and a regulatory framework in 1984, local job participation of technicians trained at technical universities and TVET institutes remains low in the upstream subsector of the oil and gas industry.
3) The overall finding of the study show that while there is a widespread perception of a skills mismatch among key role players and researchers, more important is a structural dislocation that policy reforms have not addressed to date, despite efforts to do so, making it impossible for TVET providers to supply skilled workers to the oil and gas industry.
Empowering Young People with Disabilities through Inclusive Digital Skills
Supporting young people with disabilities requires a comprehensive approach, including digital skills development, assistive innovations (vision-to-language tools, text simplification, AI-enabled auto-captioning, and virtual/augmented reality), and soft skills training. Inclusive design and consideration of disability in AI development are crucial for promoting equal opportunities and inclusiveness.
Providing technical support for programmes focused on basic, mid-level, advanced, and digital entrepreneurship skills, workplace and labour market disability inclusion is critical to inclusive development. Productivity software, web research, online communication, digital graphic design, and more could be some of the assistive innovations in the digital space. Complementary digital skills in the form of leadership, creativity, communication, entrepreneurship, and client focus are equally important in transitioning young people with disability to be labour market ready.
Similarly, further challenges do exist concerning AI and disability. AI often excludes persons with disabilities, exacerbating labour market disadvantage for them. Increasing attention to AI’s impact can promote equal opportunities, especially in recruitment processes. Ghana’s TVET institutions will have to build capacity backed by policy to make this work.
Conclusion
The Global Skills Report highlights the need for an understanding of how skills drive sustained employment and economic growth. Skills planning should be an integral part of a nation’s economic development planning, and Ghana must invest more appropriately in skills through formal TVET provision. The relevant institutions must be revitalised in terms of strategic policy decisions and collaborations. This includes anticipating future skills, developing the appropriate qualifications, and leveraging professional institutions to support students’ transition to the changing world of work.
While skills are essential for development, education policy must consider broader economic, political, structural, and social factors to stimulate economic growth. A holistic approach is necessary to address Ghana’s industrial development challenges. Providing technical support for programs focused on digital skills and transition to employment by young people with disabilities needs special attention in TVET provision in Ghana. I argue, skills planning should be integral to Ghana’s economic development planning, incorporating sectoral development planning to ensure a responsive and effective skills development system.
By Hans Awude (PhD) Researcher/Consultant
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