Technical and vocational education institutions across Ghana’s Western Region have developed an innovative resource-sharing arrangement to address persistent infrastructure deficits, allowing students at under-equipped schools to access vital training equipment and facilities at better-resourced institutions.
The collaborative approach represents a pragmatic response to challenges that have intensified as enrollment in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs continues rising faster than government infrastructure investments can accommodate.
Schools participating in the arrangement coordinate to provide students access to specialized equipment their home institutions lack—welding machines, carpentry workshops, hospitality training kitchens, or automotive repair facilities that require substantial capital investment individual schools struggle to afford.
The Western Region recorded 5,473 TVET students in 2025, reflecting enrollment growth that’s outpaced infrastructure development across Ghana’s technical education sector. When student numbers climb but workshop capacity remains static, the gap between training needs and available resources widens into a problem that threatens program quality.
Traditional approaches to this challenge involve waiting for government allocations or donor funding to arrive, then hoping those resources get distributed equitably across regions and institutions. That process takes years even under optimal circumstances, and meanwhile students miss out on hands-on training that employers expect TVET graduates to possess.
The school collaboration model offers an alternative that works within existing constraints. Rather than each institution attempting to maintain complete sets of equipment for every program—an approach that stretches already-limited budgets impossibly thin—schools specialize in particular areas while opening those facilities to students from partner institutions.
This arrangement requires coordination that goes beyond simple goodwill. Schools must align schedules so students can travel to partner institutions for specialized training sessions without disrupting their broader curriculum. Transportation logistics need solving, liability questions require addressing, and institutional pride must yield to collaborative pragmatism.
Yet these challenges appear surmountable when the alternative involves graduating students whose technical skills don’t match what industries expect. Ghana’s TVET system exists primarily to prepare young people for employment in trades and technical fields where practical competence matters more than theoretical knowledge.
When students can’t access functioning equipment during their training, they enter the job market at a disadvantage. Employers hiring welders expect candidates who’ve spent substantial time actually welding, not just reading about welding techniques. The same applies across carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, automotive repair, and other skilled trades.
The Commission for Technical and Vocational Educational and Training (CTVET), which regulates Ghana’s TVET sector, has consistently emphasized the importance of partnerships between educational institutions and industry. The Western Region’s school collaboration extends that principle horizontally among educational institutions themselves, creating networks that strengthen the entire regional ecosystem.
Ghana TVET Service leadership has noted that bridging gaps between education and industry requires strengthening partnerships not just with employers but also among schools and community professionals. The Western Region collaboration demonstrates what that looks like in practice—institutions recognizing that collective success matters more than individual competition.
Infrastructure deficits affect TVET institutions nationwide, not just in the Western Region. Equipment purchased years ago breaks down and lacks replacement parts, new programs launch without adequate facility planning, and enrollment growth consistently exceeds infrastructure expansion. These patterns repeat across Ghana’s 58 public technical institutes and numerous private TVET providers.
What makes the Western Region’s response noteworthy isn’t that they face unique challenges—they don’t—but rather that institutions chose collaboration over isolation. It would be easier for better-equipped schools to focus exclusively on their own students rather than opening facilities to outsiders. That they’ve chosen otherwise suggests recognition that regional TVET quality matters systemically.
The approach also offers potential models for other regions facing similar infrastructure constraints. If Western Region schools demonstrate that resource-sharing produces better outcomes than competitive isolation, it establishes proof of concept that education officials elsewhere might replicate.
However, collaboration addresses symptoms rather than causes. Ghana’s TVET infrastructure deficit stems fundamentally from insufficient government investment relative to enrollment growth and maintenance needs. Schools sharing equipment helps students access training opportunities they’d otherwise miss, but it doesn’t create the comprehensive infrastructure network the country ultimately requires.
The government has periodically announced commitments to TVET infrastructure development, and some progress occurs. Yet the gap between need and available resources persists, particularly in regions outside Greater Accra where government attention and donor funding concentrate less intensely.
Private sector engagement offers another partial solution. Some companies provide equipment donations or sponsor specific programs at institutions that train workers for their industries. But corporate philanthropy can’t substitute for systematic government investment in national technical education infrastructure.
For now, Western Region TVET institutions are working with what they have, using collaboration to stretch limited resources further than individual schools could manage alone. Students benefit from accessing equipment their home institutions lack, schools avoid duplicating expensive investments, and the regional technical education ecosystem functions more efficiently.
Whether this collaborative model persists depends partly on whether it delivers results. If graduates from participating schools demonstrate competencies that translate into employment success, the approach validates itself. If coordination challenges or logistical complications undermine program quality, institutions might revert to more insular approaches.
The broader question involves whether Ghana will finally make TVET infrastructure investment a genuine priority rather than something that receives attention in speeches but insufficient action in budget allocations. Technical and vocational education offers pathways to employment for thousands of young Ghanaians who won’t attend university, yet the sector consistently receives less resources and attention than traditional academic education.
Western Region schools have shown that collaboration can partially bridge infrastructure gaps. But gaps exist because successive governments haven’t invested adequately in technical education infrastructure. Until that changes, schools will continue improvising solutions to problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
