Upper East to benefit from ICCES

STORY: FROM KWAKU SAKYI-DANSO, PARLIAMENT
The Upper East Region would benefit from Integrated Community Centres for Employable Skills (ICCES) early next year, as it is the only region without ICCES, Hon. Enoch Tei Mensah, the Minister for Employment and Social Welfare, has hinted in Parliament.
The minister was responding to a question asked by the MP for Asunafo South, Hon. George Boakye, on what his outfit was doing to address youth unemployment in the region.
The MP wanted to know plans put in place by the ministry to improve conditions of ICCES initiative in schools to make them more responsive to the needs and aspirations of the unemployed youth.
The minister told the house that currently ICCES is providing skill training of 2-4 years duration in 65 centers in 52 districts and in 9 regions of the country.
“A total of 6,000 youth are under training at any given time in ICCES.
…Since its inception in 1987, under the then Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) regime, ICCES has trained over 100,000 unemployed youth to give them employable skills within and around their communities,” Hon. E.T. Mensah stated.
The minister further revealed that ICCES was facing numerous challenges which included, inadequate annual budgetary allocation leading to inadequate tools and equipment in the centers; lack of vehicles for supervision monitoring and evaluation at all levels; lack of cooperation on the part of some district/municipal assemblies in supporting ICESS located in the districts and municipalities and low amount of school fees charged in the centers owing to pervasive poverty in rural communities.
The minister said in view of these challenges, his outfit had plans to liaise with the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry to sensitize the various municipal and district assemblies on what they needed to do to sustain and improve the ICCES to train more unemployed youth.
He also disclosed that his ministry was seeking assistance from donor agencies, multinational companies, especially the mining companies to support ICCES projects.
He was confident that ICCES would develop into a vibrant organisation which can help solve some of the country’s unemployment problems.
He said efforts are being made to make ICCES benefit from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) as well.
“This has become imperative in view of the fact that ICCES is a major service provider under the Council for Technical Vocational Education and Training (COTVET),” the minister said.