Dept focuses on building workforce

National

THE Department of National Planning and Monitoring is focused on supporting centres of excellence in technical and vocational education training (Tvet) for a skilled workforce, a department official says.
Assistant secretary for social sector Joshua Himina said that the department would continue to support Tvet in scholarships and infrastructure development through the public investment programme fund.
“The support to Tvet is there but not sufficient while there is no justice in reporting how Tvet skills scholarship programme funds were spent.” Himina said.
Himina was speaking at the Tvet centre principals, directors and governing council chairpersons consultative forum at the National Polytechnic Institute of PNG in Lae this week.
The conference theme is “Skilled workforce for a better, healthy and wealthy nation through quality Tvet”.
He highlighted the need for specialised Tvet institutions to train a skilled labour force for various industrial sectors.
“For example, the PNG LNG  (liquefied natural gas) project caught us unprepared so the Department of National Planning and Monitoring spent K120,000 per student to be trained at the College of Tafe in Queensland, Australia, to acquire the skills,” Himina said.
“Therefore, the country needs to identify what resource sectors we have and those we anticipate in future and set Tvet institutions accordingly to prepare our workforce in advance.”
Himina said that Tvet institutions should be built based on needs in the country’s resource sector.
Port Moresby Business College principal John Lasisi enquired if the country was doing enough to meet standards.
“We still do not know where we are going and this issue needs to be addressed properly because Tvet has grown but is still working with the old Education Act and Tvet Act,” he said.