Teveta urges industry on new recruitment system
The Technical Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training Authority (Teveta) is calling on industry to embrace an apprenticeship system for recruitment to help reduce the high unemployment rate.
This follows a study tour representatives of the authority underwent in Germany recently where, among other things, they partnered with the HWK to assist the country adopt the Germany Dual Vocational Education Training (VET) System. VET combines apprenticeships in a company and vocational education at a vocational school in one course.
The development comes at a time industry has been raising concerns that most of the graduates from Tevet colleges do not meet the requirements of the industry.
But Teveta board chairman, Gilbert Chilinde, insists that industry must first embrace entrepreneurship skills.
“We want our companies to re-invent the wheel and start taking on board more apprentices to train more people in skills development. Currently, we are relying on our stakeholder, the Employers Consultative Association of Malawi, which has adopted the Global Apprenticeship Network and we are hopefull that from there, more companies will start training people that have no skills at all and make them employees,” Chilinde said.
He further said the authority’s partnership with Germany’s HWK will see over 200 people being trained in Germany who will become trainers of trainers in Tevet colleges to improve the output in skills among Tevet graduates.
HWK’s Henrich Rinke, who is currently working as technical advisor for Teveta, pointed out that after touring Tevet facilities in the country, he noted that the tools and machinery used for teaching are outdated and do not correspond with what is being used in the industry.
He says unless there is a continuous exchange of ideas where the private sector expresses what they need and Tevet colleges provide that, the system will not significantly contribute to the transformation of the country’s economy.
