Mawusi Nudekor Awity
Director General, Ghana TVET Service
Mawusi Nudekor Awity was born in Accra on 6th August 1962. She is a native of Tefle in the Volta Region. She had her early education at the University Primary School, Legon and secondary education at the prestigious Aburi Girls Secondary School for her ordinary level certificate and Mawuli School for her 6thform certificate.
Mawusi Nudekor Awity is currently the Director General for Ghana TVET Service. She is the first Director-General of the Ghana TVET Service and the first woman Director-General of the organisation.
Mawusi Nudekor Awity is an advocate for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and a Women’s Rights Advocate. She is an experienced Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Expert, Social-Entrepreneur, Small Business Development Specialist, Women and Youth Vocational and Entrepreneurial Capacity Developer.
She is an active member of the Network of Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT), the umbrella organisation in Ghana with membership for individuals and civil society organisations working to promote women’s rights and gender equity in Ghana. She actively contributed to the development of the Women’s Manifesto and Abantu for Development, Ghana, recognised her work for Women’s Economic rights and security and gave her an award for her contribution to activism and the development of women in Ghana.
Mawusi Nudekor Awity has over 30 years of experience in entrepreneurial and vocational trainingand promotes TVET Education as the key to self-employment and national development. is a promoter of self-employment.
Before entering public service, Mawusi Nudekor Awity was actively involved in social and gender development activities as the Executive Director of the Network of Women in Growth (NEWIG), Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) she founded in 2002 in Tefle, Volta Region where women are trained and given access to livelihoods and markets. The NEWIG Centre has trained over 7800 women in different skills and trades.
Many young women who have benefitted from her vocational skills training are now master craftspersons, and some have also established NGOs and CBOs. She always brought innovation and creativity to her work,bearing in mind the changing context of socioeconomicneeds and demands. She encouraged young women to enter male-dominated vocations through her "Young Women in Male-Dominated Skills Training Program" and NEWIG trained women in Draftsmanship, General Electricals, Plumbing, Air Conditioning, Refrigeration and Professional Driving.
She is also the first to introduce the Young Women in Professional Driving Training Programme. Some of the beneficiaries are chauffeuring Chief Executives, and driving commercial buses and fuel tankers. She also introduced a mentorship program for young women entrepreneurs, which has seen many women operating successful businesses. Awards won by some of the beneficiaries include MTN Heroes of Change, 2021 Best Female Engineer. Mawusi was also nominated in 2021 for the MTN Heroes of Change award.
She possesses tremendous expertise in strategic planning, policy formulation, analytical thinking, risk management, negotiation skills and resource mobilisation acumen.
Prior to her current appointment, Mawusi Nudekor Awity was the Executive Director of the National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) from 2017 to 2021.
She is a Social Marker and a promoter of Girl-Child Education, especially in the TVET sub-sector, where she focused on females in male-dominated trades. Mawusi Nudekor Awity is one of the few exceptionally multi-Talented professional.
Academic Pursuit
Mawusi Nudekor Awity holds a Master’s in fine arts (MFA), University of Ghana, Legon and a Certificate in Livelihoods and Markets from CoadyInternational Institute, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Canada, as well as a Certificate in Vocational School Management from ILO Centre, Turin Italy, among many others. Mawusi NudekorAwity’s expertise includes Vocational Skills Training, Small Business Development, Theatre Arts (Theatre in Development), Gender Advocacy, People Skills Development and Self Development. She also has skills in executing good Counselling, Resource Mobilization, Crisis Management, and supervising and motivating people at all levels.
AWARDS
She has many recognitions and awards to her credit. Some significant ones are;
ACHIEVEMENTS
Under her Leadership at the Ghana TVET Service, she has seen to;
- Institutionalisation of a vibrant Career Guidance and Counselling Unit for Technicaland Vocational Education
- Improved leadership systems at the TVET landscape.
- Construction of “State-of-the-Art.”
- Aggressive retooling and re-equipping of TVET Institutions.
- Modernization and upgrading of existing TVET Institutions.
- Training and Retraining of Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff.
- Establishment of 16 Regional Offices for Ghana TVET Service.
- Digitilisation of TVET activities.
- Massive recruitment with its resultant increase in Staff strength.
- Implementation of Physical Education and Sports in TVET Institutions.
- Roll out of Workplace Experience Learning in TVET Institutions.
- Strong Industry linkage, collaboration, and partnership
- Adoption of Relevant Curriculum and Competency-Based Training (CBT) Assessment Methods.
- Employment and admission of Persons with Special Needs.
- Government ‘s provision of necessary funding to TVET Institutions.
- Rollout of “Free TVET for All”.
- Strong collaboration with Donor Partners.
- Renewed emphasis on Soft Skills development to promote employability.
- Emphasis on Graduate Tracer Studies (Employability, Further Studies, Life-long Learning, Research and Innovation).
- Increase in Female participation in leadership at TVET Institutional level.
- Implementation of Gender-responsive programmes (Male in Female dominated programmes and Female in Male-dominated TVET programmes).
- Inclusivity of TVET Delivery i.e Gender, Persons with Special Needs.
- Involvement of Private TVET Providers in the activities of the Service (i.e FEPTAG, Private TVET, Providers Association, Informal TVET providers, MCPs, Trade Associations, etc.).
