The Minister for Education, Heritage and Arts, Premila Kumar, has admitted that some vocational institutes are not offering quality teaching but has explained why was the case.

Addressing teachers and educators in Ba during a talanoa session at the Xavier College on Tuesday, Ms Kumar said this was a result of findings from the ministry.

“For TVET ( Technical and Vocational Education and Training) – I know there are about 30 or 33 vocational schools around the country – we’ve done a very simple exercise and we’ve found that some of the vocational schools were really not delivering quality education in those institutes,” she said.

“We have reviewed the courses that were offered and how we can add more variety based on the job market not because it’s easy to teach, stitching, sewing or because it’s easy to teach cooking, or because it’s easy to get students to do carpentry work.”

“The TVET courses need to be based on the job market and a guarantee that students would be able to secure employment once they left the respective institute.”

“It was quite interesting to find that two schools, about one kilometre apart had about 14 students and the other one had about 16 students but they were offering the same subjects,” she said.

“Surely we can put all the students in one classroom and then offer new subjects in another school.”

She said the TVET sector was one that the ministry had also sought assistance from relevant stakeholders.

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