Technical colleges to offer technician diplomas
Minister of Labour and Manpower Development Henry Mussa has said technical colleges in the country will start offering technician diplomas, under a programme to be supported by the World Bank.
“My ministry and Teveta [Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority] are working on developing curriculum for technician level programmes, which will be offering technician diplomas. Lilongwe Technical College will offer the first technician diploma courses,” said Mussa, at a graduation of 119 students at Lilongwe Technical College (LTC) on Friday.
He said the ministry is also working on establishing a unified Tevet assessment and certification body to address the challenge of releasing graduates with three different national qualifications.
He said currently, graduates from technical colleges go out with different national qualifications, which end up confusing the industry and Tevet stakeholders.
Mussa said to address the challenge of unemployment after graduating, government is in the process of setting up the Malawi Development Bank to which organised and registered small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will be considered for start-up capital.
LTC principal Peter Njunga said the college plans to increase its intake, but it does not have enough infrastructure, teaching and learning materials.
He said currently, the college’s intake is at 1 600 and plans are to bring it to 2 000 to contribute to government plans of training more human resource for the labour market.
“Our challenge so far is funding. We get very little funding to expand and renovate our infrastructure and buy materials,” said Njunga.
A representative of graduating students, Mwayi Kalinda, asked the minister to consider reviewing the Employment Act so that technical college graduates can start at a better grade when they are employed in government.
“Imagine that after four years of studying, a graduate from technical college starts at grade M while another who did two years at another college starts at grade H. We ask that this should be reviewed,” he said.
