By Mahzouba Maya Faal
The Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology has announced that three components of the Youth Empowerment through TVET in The Gambia project have successfully been implemented. The project is funded by KOICA, with technical support from UNESCO. The three components are: the development and approval of a TVET Policy; provision of modern industry standard equipment for The University of Applied Science, Engineering and Technology and its outreach centres; and strengthening the Education Management Information System (EMIS).
According to the Minister of Higher Education, Professor Pierre Gomez, the development of a highly qualified intellectual capital from our educational institutions at all levels; especially Technical and Vocational Education and Training, must commensurate with the quality of the mechanisms, processes and products that are in place in these institutions. As a result, Hon. Gomez remarked that if institutions want to deliver on their mandate, the need to put in place a state-of-the-art infrastructure, up-to-date data management systems as well as appropriate human and material resources cannot be questioned; thus, he describes the project as both timely and apt.
The Minister of Basic and Secondary Education, Claudiana Cole, said TVET is important for the development of any country and that it starts at the basic and secondary school level.
In his statement, the UNESCO Representative, Pieume Calice Olivier, said that UNESCO Dakar renews commitment to The Gambia Government, through the Youth Empowerment Project in The Gambia. The project, he said, has the objective of creating an enabling environment that will give young people, especially girls, a better chance of obtaining decent employment and entrepreneurship by providing them with live-long opportunities as outlined in SDG 4and 8.
For Dongrib KIM, Deputy Representative of KOICA, the Government of The Gambia is one of the important partners to the Republic of Korea and KOICA. This he said is evident in the several projects that are being implemented in the country.