Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training Authority (Teveta) says it is banking on the Public Private Sector Dialogue Forum to develop a competent skilled workforce for the industry.
Speaking during the dialogue forum conference in Blantyre on Friday, Teveta board chairperson Don Whayo said he hopes the programme will lead to improvement in the quality and relevance of the Tevet programmes in Malawi and contribute towards job creation.
He said as the authority is undertaking a number of reforms to improve efficiency of the system, lack of qualified teachers is a huge challenge.
Whayo said: “Reforms require more qualified teachers. We have, however, noted that while we have these technical colleges being built, currently we don’t have colleges to specifically train teachers for these technical colleges.
“This could definitely have a negative impact on quality of graduates to ensure skills training is enhanced.”
In her remarks, Deputy Minister of Labour Vera Kamtukule advised Teveta to take advantage of existing facilities to train the teachers, but said her ministry has received complaints from the industry that the skills being produced do not match the needs of the industry.
She said: “The industries are always changing their demands, so we need to keep up in as far as producing skills is concerned.
“Our programme as government won’t work if people don’t up their skills as some of the skills will require certain jobs that are not currently available.”
Kamtukule said the Covid-19 pandemic has made the need to improve skills a necessity due to the changing world of work.
The dialogue forum chairperson George Khaki, who is also Employers Consultative Association of Malawi executive director said he is confident that through the programme, the public and private sectors will have an opportunity to improve skills needed for the country’s development.
The dialogue forum is a consortium of the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Ecam and Teveta aimed at assisting to improve interface and involvement of the private sector in Tevet programmes.
