Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development acting Principal Secretary Godfrey Kafere has said responsive skills development is key to the socio- economic development of the country.
But Kafere has lamented the presence of multiple national qualifications and assessment systems in the Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training (Tevet) sector.
He said: “This [multiple national qualifications] situation should not be allowed to continue because it is retrogressive and is causing confusion both in training institutions and the labour market. We need a unified Tevet assessment and certification system.”
Kafere said this in Mangochi on Friday when he officially opened the Consultation Meeting on Rolling Out of the Harmonised Curricula.
for a review
He observed that when skills development is not responsive to labour market, progress of development slows because industry spends a lot of money retraining employees.
Currently, Malawi has three parallel national qualifications and assessment, namely National Trade Test System administered by Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development; the Malawi Craft and Advanced Craft system administered by Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb); and the Tevet Qualification Framework System administered by Tevet Authority (Teveta).
Said Kafere: “This has necessitated the reviewing and harmonisation of 11 curricula to make the Tevet sector responsive to the demands of the industry. It is government’s hope that the meeting is going to come up with an implementation Action Plan for rolling out the harmonised curriculum by January 2017.”
Teveta executive director Ndione Chauluka has since urged the private and public sectors to continue supporting the Tevet sector to increase opportunities for youths and marginalised groups to access Tevet.
Delegates to the meeting were drawn from Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development; Department of Human Resource and Manpower Development, Maneb and Teveta.
The harmonisation of the 11 curricula have been funded by Teveta through the World Bank supported Skills Development Project (SDP), a four-year K4 billion programme that seeks to support improvement in higher education and training institutions in Malawi.
