Dr Fred Kyei Asamoah, the Executive Director, Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COTVET), said SSCs were critical to policy makers' aspirations to develop an education and training system that was both 'demand-driven' and 'employer-led'.

He said the establishment of the SSCs was part of a new COTVET Bill, which would soon be placed before Parliament for passage into law.  He said the new COTVET Bill if passed into law would take care of service delivery, awarding and qualifications in the TVET sector.

Dr Asamoah announced this on Thursday at a Consultative Breakfast Meeting with Stakeholders on Establishment of Sector Skills Bodies in Ghana. He said the SSCs would ensure competency based approach training in their respective sectors to ensure that the right skills were acquired during training.

He expressed the hope that by the close of the year, at least two to four SSCs would have been established with the support of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI).

The proposed 22 SSCs include Agriculture, Agribusiness and Agro Processing; Tourism, Hospitality and Food; Construction; Energy; Mining; Cosmotology; Electronics, Automation and Electrical; Telecom; Metal and Textile and Apparel.

Others are Information Communication Technology (ICT); Logistics and Transportation; Automotive Skills Development; Media and Entertainment; Security and Safety; Banking and Finance; and Strategic Manufacturing.

The rest are Environment, Sanitation and Waste Recycling; Earthmoving and Infrastructure Building; Health Care; Machine and Equipment Manufacturing; and Wood and Forestry.  Dr Asamoah said “Government has realised the concerns and the problems that industry is facing and is responding to ensure we have a conducive environment for industries to do well.”

He said the industries would determine the occupational standards that they need to make them successful. Dr Asamoah noted that industries were the first development partners of this nation and the economy. “It is not going to be an everyday talk. It is going to be an action that we can check off as a nation,” he said.

He said in the new transformation agenda, government was realigning all Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) under the ministry of education.  Mr Rockson Kwesi Dogbegah, Chairman AGI Construction Sector, appealed to the government to establish the Construction Council to help strengthen and promote the Ghanaian construction industry.

He also called for the development of an effective collaboration between academia and industry; so that academia could effectively engage industry in the development of their curricula; adding that “industry knows what the challenges are, so they should leverage on this”.