Africa-Press – Ghana. Government is actively implementing a comprehensive Human Capital Development Framework to ensure that initiatives in agriculture, digitalisation and vocational training are not isolated but part of a coherent national strategy.
The Framework builds on such initiatives by ensuring that they are scaled, better coordinated and linked to measurable outcomes.
Dr Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo, Minister for Labour, Jobs and Employment, was speaking at the 5th Annual National Precision Quality Conference in Accra on the theme: “Improving Labour Productivity and Enterprise Competitiveness through a Human Capital Development Framework.”
The Conference was organised by the Design & Technology Institute (DTI), in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and in collaboration with the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).
A key highlight of the Conference was the presentation of a baseline study on human capital in Ghana, commissioned by DTI and NDPC.
He said the study sets out how Ghana would align skills development to enterprise competitiveness and how “we will measure progress in terms of jobs created productivity gains and competitiveness achieved.”
The Minister said countries that had successfully transformed their economies, such as Singapore, South Korea, and Malaysia, for example, did so by investing heavily in human capital.
He said these countries were not resource-rich but invested in education, vocational skills and technology adoption.
“These investments created resilient and competitive economies. Ghana can and must do the same. We are laying the foundations, but we must now accelerate implementation with focus and discipline,” he added.
Dr Pelpuo said the Ghana Apprenticeship Programme and the Ghana Skills Development Initiative were equipping tens of thousands of young people with market-ready skills.
This would contribute to increasing productivity in enterprises, from small workshops to large industries.
He said the task was to ensure that Ghana’s human capital strategy produced citizens who were innovative, adaptable and capable of transforming their enterprises and communities.
Ms Constance Swaniker, Founder & President, DTI, said the Institute and its partners had demonstrated through practice that investing in people directly results in meaningful impact.
She said that with the Mastercard Foundation, we created over 30,609 jobs for young people through Precision Quality training.
She said PQ had become part of Ghana’s National Quality Policy and enshrined in law under the Ghana Standards Authority Act 1078 (2022).
The President said DTI learners now enjoyed a 70 per cent employability rate, proof that when skills meet precision, transformation happened.
“Through internships and incubation, we have enabled over 48,895 graduates to transition into more than 87 industries,” she said.
She said DTI had championed girls’ education and currently 60 per cent of their students were female, a quiet revolution in a male-dominated TVET sector.
“We have empowered the informal sector by training 31,794 master craftsmen, artisans, traders, and entrepreneurs to adopt PQ standards,” she added.
She said DTI had established Precision Quality demonstration centres in seven technical universities and four pre-tertiary institutes nationwide.
Ms Swaniker said DTI had received endorsements from the IFC, the African Union (SIFA–NEPAD–AUDA), and WorldSkills, confirming PQ as a continental solution.
She said the findings of the Human Capital Baseline Study were sobering, adding while thousand of students graduated annually, fewer than 30 per cent transition into jobs aligned with their training.
She said that more than 80 per cent of the workforce was in the informal sector, yet its GDP contribution remained disproportionately low, at around 30 per cent.
Ghana’s Human Capital Index indicates that a child born today will reach only 40 per cent of their potential productivity without significant improvements in health and education (World Bank, 2023).
She said gender disparities persisted, closing the gender gap in labour markets could boost Africa’s GDP by $316 billion each year (AfDB), and cultural stigma still deemed TVET as “second-class,” discouraging young people from pursuing vocational careers.
She said human capital development was too vital to be politicised and it must be regarded as a national endeavour, surpassing political cycles.
“The private sector’s role is vital in maintaining continuity by investing in skills, aligning training with industry needs, creating jobs, and supporting reforms beyond election cycles ensuring that human capital development remains a shared national priority,” she added.
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