About 102 teachers from the Asuasi Technical Institute (ASUTECH) in the Central Region have been trained through the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Skill Up project to provide online tuition to students in the school.

As a beneficiary, the ASUTECH will be supported by the ILO and the Council for Technical Vocational Education and Training (COTVET) to develop a guideline for digitalisation to serve as a blueprint for replication in other technical institutes.

The project seeks to support the COTVET in strengthening the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system in its responses to the labour market needs.

It is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Norway/Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, and executed by the ILO.

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The trail-blazer

Closing the digital training programme at ASUTECH in the Central Region, the Project Coordinator of the ILO Skill-Up Ghana Project, Mr Frank Adetor, stated that the Asuansi Technical Institute has become the trail-blazer in digitising teaching and learning within the TVET enclave.

He said the rapid development of digital technologies creates new opportunities and challenges for Ghanaians.

He said digitalisation was changing the nature of occupations and the skills required in different economic activities.

“New job roles and forms of work organisation place fresh demands on enterprise human resource practices, affecting talent management and staff development practices in all firms.

“The increasing use of digital technologies is also driving change in the tools and modalities of learning, assessment and certification along with the provision of career guidance, job matching and labour market services.

“In this context, national Technical and Vocational Education and Training and skills systems have both external and internal pressures.

“First, they have to respond to the external demand for new skills from our increasingly digital society and enterprises, and secondly, as other sectors do, they themselves have to engage in digital transformation and the challenges this presents to their institutions, staff and learners,” he said.

Special obligation

Mr Adetor stated that the TVET and skills systems have a special obligation to ensure that in the process of digitalisation, the uneven access to equipment, tools and skills that exist could not be allowed to increase marginalisation of disadvantaged groups and to widen the digital divide.

He stated that the considerable challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic have brought the issue of digitalisation to the fore.

“All forms of education and training have been affected, particularly in low-income countries and among the most vulnerable social groups. As a result of the great efforts of public authorities, the private sector and civil society, innovative solutions were developed as the emergency response evolved.

“From these arrangements have emerged promising practices and the development of more flexible learning and assessment options, including high-tech, low-tech and even no-tech solutions, dictated by local contexts and developed as the crisis unfolded.

“Although TVET and skills systems rapidly adapted to the COVID learning crisis and accelerated the introduction of digital technologies, recent ILO and UNESCO research illustrates the need for integrated and coherent national digitalisation strategies, developed through social dialogue, that address both the demand and supply sides of skills systems,” he added.