Experts discuss Tevet curriculum
The Acting Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development, Godfrey Kafere, has lamented the presence of multiple national qualifications and assessment systems in the Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training (Tevet) sector.
“This situation should not be allowed to continue because it is retrogressive and is causing confusion both in training institutions and the labour market. We need a unified Tevet assessment and certification system,” he said.
Speaking on Friday in Mangochi when he officially opened a consultation meeting on rolling out of a harmonised curriculum, Kafere observed that when skills development is not responsive to market needs, progress of development slows because industry spends a lot of money retraining employees.
He observed that there are three parallel national qualifications and assessment systems which are the National Trade Test System administered by Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development, the Malawi Craft and Advanced Craft system administered by Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) and the Tevet Qualification Framework System administered by Tevet Authority.
“This has necessitated the reviewing and harmonisation of 11 curricula in order to make the Tevet sector responsive to the demands of the industry. It is government’s hope that the meeting is going to come up with an implementation Action Plan for rolling out the harmonised curriculum by January 2017,” he said
Teveta Executive Director, Ndione Chauluka, urged the private and public sectors to continue supporting the Tevet sector in order to increase opportunities for the youth and marginalised groups to access Tevet.
The meeting which has brought together experts from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development; Department of Human Resource and Manpower Development; Maneb and Teveta, has been funded by Teveta through the World Bank-supported Skills Development Project (SDP).
Teveta is one of the five SDP implementing institutions which are benefiting from World Bank loan to support improvement in Higher Education and Training institutions in Malawi. The project which is to the tune of about K4 billion will run for four years and has four components, including the review and development of technical training programmes.
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