Employment in Ghana

The Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare exists to promote sustainable employment opportunities, management and vocational skills development, training and re-training, harmonious industrial relations, safe and group formation and social integration of vulnerable, excluded and the disadvantaged for the development and growth of the economy.

We do this through the formulation and implementation of policies, co-ordination, monitoring and evaluation of the performance in the sector; guided by our belief in improved productivity, efficiency, equity and prompt responsiveness to our clients. The latter comprises the labor force, employers, people with disabilities, the disadvantaged and vulnerable.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

Recognising the high youth unemployment problem, the Ministry is expanding all its vocational/technical and skills training institutions to maximize their intake. Arrangements have been made to open all social welfare training institutions as well as rehabilitation centers for the disabled to the public.

So far, ten new NVTI institutions and 25 new ICCES facilities have been opened in various districts in the rural areas. With Cabinet's decision to pay salaries of ICCES instructors, the capacity of ICCES to enroll more youth for training was increased.

The vocational training curricula have been reviewed to increase their relevance to the current labour market. Entrepreneurship and co-operative programmes have been added, and graduates will be exposed to micro-financing to encourage the youth to enter into self-employment.

There is a new focus on short-term competency-based training programmes, which are readily marketable. The curricula also include processing of prevalent raw materials in the communities in which training institutions are located.

To ensure quality standards and relevance in skills training, a collaborative committee made up of NVTI, ICCES, OIC and Ghana National Association of Private Vocational and Technical Institutions (GNAVTI) has been established to co-ordinate the training programmes.