Mawusi Nudekor Awity, Executive Director, NVTI
Mawusi Nudekor Awity, Executive Director of the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI), says students should be introduced early into entrepreneurship so that they can start businesses on their own after school.
She also stressed the need to retool vocational institutions to make them attractive and further offer scholarships to students and staff to upgrade themselves.
Speaking during an interaction with journalists in Accra recently, Ms Awity said vocation schools also need to run new courses and organise seminars on entrepreneurship for students periodically.
“We need to make technical and vocational education attractive and appealing. If Ghana will become a middle-income country, it will have to depend on the skills and efforts of institutions such as technical and vocational schools,” she said.
The newly-appointed Executive Director said the impression often created among the citizenry that Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) was for school dropouts should change without delay.
According to her, she was ready to work through the NVTI and together with the collaboration of the media and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to give vocational training a new phase.
Mrs Awity said trade shows by various vocational institutions would also be introduced to promote the use of the handiworks of trainees and explore markets for them.
Until her appointment, Mrs Awity was the Executive Director of the Network of Women in Growth (NEWIG), a Non-Governmental Organisation.
She was also the Managing Director of Vichar’s Image Africa (VIA), a private business concern.
In 2013, the Global Women Innovative Network (GWIN), a non-governmental organisation based in the United Kingdom, conferred on her the Innovative Woman Award.
Mrs Awity also received an honorary certificate from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in 2016, and has received several recognitions, including one from Tefle in the Volta Region.
She has specialty in Small Business Development (SBD), theatre arts, gender parity issues, self-development and training in vocational skills.