The Minister of Labour, Alpha Timbo has said that “it is significant to realize that skills development and particularly lifelong learning are critical to ensuring that the number of job seekers increases…”
He explained that the labor market essentially it refers to the number of people available for work in relation to the number of jobs that are available, adding that skills development is a prerequisite to employability.
He made this statement at the Skills Development Fund Secretariat, SDFS, private sector engagement with owners of technical and vocational institutes, firms, and industries to identify skill shortages and job prospects for trainees.
The Labour Minister said Skills development, and lifelong learning increases the probability of addressing the demand side of labor “that is why we take a premium in ensuring that we support this project” Despite the nexus between skills development and employment, skills development has substantially not been linked to the demand side of labor, so many times there has been a mismatched, noting that this dynamic is what the government seeks to change this is why the SDP is a “project that our government, definitely value.”
Dr. Victor Massaquoi, Director of Technical and Vocational Education and Training TVET at the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education, explained that engagement speaks directly to the project’s core objective, which is to ensure that young people have the necessary skills in five core areas in order to meet job market demand and to be enterprising.
He stated that almost 13,000 young people have been taught, thus it is critical to involve the commercial sector since the SDF initiative and the private sector are inextricably linked.
According to Dr. Massaquoi, the purpose of the partnership meetings that will be held around the nation is to “educate the private sector about what this initiative is about, and what kind of connection we want to create and go ahead.”
Dr. Massaquoi said, the purpose of the partnership meetings that will be held around the country is to “educate the private sector about what this initiative is about, and what kind of connection we want to create and forging ahead.”
The second purpose for the involvement, he explained, is to create collaboration between what we term public and private organisations. The third purpose is for consultation, while the fourth is for engagement. He noted that “if you don’t consult, there is going to be controversy, and if you don’t include people from the start, it will be tough, especially with a project of this scale.” He also stated that empowerment is a cause for involvement.
“Us in the public sector we have something to offer to you, the beyond policy, we can also assist or work with you in terms of training, in terms of sharing of key knowledge, skills and abilities to do things, that’s where the empowerment comes in,” he explained.
Commissioner National Youth Commission, Ngolo Katta said the engagement is critical. “we think the novelty and it must continue. This is supposed to be an ongoing process onwards where we will consistently engage the private sector to understand what the critical issues are in terms of employability of young people.
According to the World Bank representative, the engagement marks further progress in the government’s effort to promote viable collaboration and partnership between industry and TVET service providers to improve training, quality and employment opportunities for young people in this country. He said “The skills project was designed to leverage industry participation and ownership of both training process and training outcomes.” Adding that “as of end of October this year 3,315 youth have completed TVET programs. He added that 1,004 were trained by the private sector, small, medium and large businesses in other words, 30% of youth completed SDF program were trained by an employer in the private sector, not at the TVET Institute.” stressing that “this is significant for TEVET sector development in Sierra Leone.”
MTHE’s Chief Technical Adviser, Josephus Brima alluded, “the private sector being the job wealth creator, the skills development project most engaged the private sector, demanding to know their areas of need. If this is not done then we start to easily get into the current routine of producing graduates who are merely job seekers and sometimes not fit for purpose.”
Alimatu Vandi of the NCTVA disclosed that one of the main components of the SDP is the accreditation of the TVET programs by sector the participation of the private sector could be in curriculum development, occupational profiles development, provision of assessors on the job training for students, provision of internship opportunities for teachers and students, as well as graduates being recruited by a industries.”
