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Teveta chief speaks on community colleges

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Technical, Entrepreneurial, Vocational Educational and Training Authority (Teveta) says its operations are being overstretched by the introduction of community technical colleges.

Teveta executive director Wilson Makulumiza-Nkhoma made the revelation when Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Grace Chiumia visited the institution’s headquarters in Lilongwe to appreciate its operations as a new responsible minister.

Mutharika with trainees at Community College

In 2015, President Peter Mutharika launched the Community Technical College Programme which he said is his government’s flagship project for youth empowerment through skills development to create jobs to solve the country’s prevailing high unemployment rate and reduce the scramble for white collar jobs.

Makulumiza-Nkhoma  said because the colleges came about without proper planning in terms of financing, equipment and human resource, among others, there is inadequate trained technical teachers as the country has no technical teachers training colleges  lacks of resources to procure equipment and that Treasury is not timely remitting Tevet levy that it collects on behalf of Teveta for its operations.

He said: “I can say treasury owes us a lot of money I cannot be specific about the figures but the bottom line is that treasury tries to give us what they have but what we are actually pleading is that there should be more resources, sometimes even additional resources to this cause because the demands are so enormous.”

Chiumia, while commending the institution for its role, promised to engage relevant government ministries to ensure speedy solution to the concerns.

 “The President has great passion for youth’s empowerment through community technical colleges, and as government we know that after graduating they will be looking for jobs through contracts. So, am urging ministries to make sure that whenever they have some work they should employ them to utilise the skills that we are developing. There should be a policy to ensure that a certain amount of work is awarded to the skilled youths from technical colleges,” she said.

Government established the Community Technical Colleges Programme to increase access to Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training (Tevet). So far only 12 community technical colleges have been constructed, out of which two are in the Northern Region, four in the Central Region and six in the Southern Region.

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