Maravi

Only 6% of G12 access higher education - Dr Nkanza

Only 6% of G12 access higher education - Dr Nkanza
By Allan Mulenga
Thu 04 Feb. 2010, 04:00 CAT

ONLY six per cent of the total number of pupils who complete Grade 12 are able to access higher education, TEVETA director general Dr Patrick Nkanza has revealed.

Making a presentation during a familiarisation meeting on the operations of Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority (T EVETA) at the Ministry of Science and Technology yesterday, Dr Nkanza noted that out of over 300,000 pupils who complete Grade 12 every year, only six per cent - translating into 14,000 - were able to access tertiary institutions.

“On the issue of training support, there is need to improve access to training because when you look at the figures here, from the schooling Grade 12 we only have three per cent accessing TEVET institutions, one per cent access other tertiary institutions, for instance education colleges, and two per cent are able to go to universities, but you see here 94 per cent of school leavers do not go anywhere,” he said.

Dr Nkanza said the scenario had led to a number of pupils enrolling at unregistered institutions.

“The issue of students enrolling at unregistered institutions is worrying that is why last year we ran adverts in various newspapers informing the public about the names of TEVETA registered institutions in the country. The idea is to alert the students about the genuine institutions,” he said.

Dr Nkanza observed that there was need for the government to formulate the national skills development plan, so as to increase the number of training institutions in the country.

“Some of the issues affecting TEVETA are that; there is need for the national skills development plan, the TEVET qualifications framework for this one we are still awaiting the decision on the memorandum from Cabinet. For the transfer of examinations from ECZ to TEVETA we started last year and we are proceeding well,” said Dr Nkanza.

And science and technology minister Dr Brian Chituwo said there was need for TEVETA to strengthen boards in all skills training institutions.

Dr Chituwo said having strong board members in place would help improve the quality of education among the skills training institutions.

“Our role as TEVETA should be to provide guidance and oversight, but there are certain boards that are not doing well. I don’t think we provide guidance in terms of financial resources. We need to strengthen the boards in all training institutions,” said Dr Chituwo.

Labels: EDUCATION, NEOLIBERALISM, PATRICK NKANZA, TEVETA

posted by MrK @ 4:02 PM