The Deputy Minister-designate for Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) at the Ministry of Youth and Sports has assured members of the Liberian Senate that he is qualified and well-positioned for the job.
Laraamand Nyonton, appearing before the Senate during its Friday sitting, said he has come with a great wealth of experience in youth programming, workforce development, business and strategic leadership.
He added that he has worked on the Africa’s School Project, an initiative of the international Finance Cooperation (IFC), providing technical, financial, and administrative support to schools in order to address gaps and weaknesses in their operations, thereby increasing capacities and expanding revenues.
The Deputy Minister-designate furthered that he has also worked for the USAID’s Factoring Finance for Procurement (3FP) and the Sustainable Marketplace Initiative of Liberia (SMIL) Programs, as well as Mercy Corps Liberia, where he trained over 200 young entrepreneurs and provided them operational grant funding.
“I also led the revamping process of the National Cadet program in 2012, after 23 years of dormancy due to the civil war,” Laraamand added.
Being specifically concerned with workforce development, working with immigrant families, and different populations of youth in giving them essential skills for higher paying jobs, Laraamand founded the Excellent Staffing Global, a Limited Liability Company in the United States of America in 2022.
While before the Senate, Laraamand vowed to re-image TEVT in the context of the governance and structural transforming needed, and introduce branding and marketing of TVET services in Liberia.
The Minister-designate added, “As one in charge of designing, implementing, monitoring, reviewing, and ensuring the success of all technical and vocational training programs under the Ministry of Youth and Sports, I am pleased to submit that TVET remains a sub-sector under both the Ministries of Education and Youth and Sports. TVET, alone, is vital to Liberia’s struggling economy.”
“By focusing on workforce development alone, TVET has a potential to create employment opportunities for our youth and end their painful reality of destitution and dependency, thereby contributing to a sustainable and inclusive economic development. As it stands, the promise of TVET is far from being actualized,” he expressed.
He noted, “Poor governance and leadership from the top, lack of a clear and coordinated policy direction, incoherent teaching practice and training methodology, unsustainable funding mechanism, and the lack of political will, are among other things causing TVET to be chronically underperforming and greatly out of touch with the demands of the current labor market.”
