NEW DIRECTION FOR TECHNICAL EDUCATION (PAGE 11)

THE Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Professor Dominic Fobih, has said that Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is to be repositioned to enable it to play its proper role in national development.
He said the repositioning of TVET would assist polytechnics to blaze a new trail in tertiary education where there would be a healthy blend of practical competency acquisition and theory.
Professor Fobih said this in a speech read on his behalf by Mr Paul Effah, Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), at the maiden congregation of the Bolgatanga Polytechnic.
A total of 199 graduates made up of 136 males and 63 females who completed their academic programmes of study during the 2005/2006 and 2006/2007 academic years were given Higher National Diploma certificates.
Prof. Fobih said the government would continue to improve physical and academic infrastructure and develop the human capital through the many interventions instituted.
He also said the government through the NCTE had started a research in order to harmonise the needs of the world of work and the polytechnic curriculum.
“The results of this research together with a tracer study being carried out by the National Board for Professional and Technicians Examination (NABPTEX) and NCTE would help polytechnics to design their training to suit the needs of industry,” he said.
Prof. Fobih emphasised that the perception that polytechnics were not receiving the necessary attention from the government was false.
He stressed that the government’s budget for polytechnics had risen from approximately GH¢ 3,100,000 in 2001 to GH¢ 54,096, 618.
The minister advised the graduands to be focused as they entered the job market, since they were likely to face a lot of challenges.
The Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Alhassan Samari, urged the polytechnic authorities to restructure their curriculum to address the current and future needs of the country, stressing that with the recent oil find in Ghana, there was going to be a demand for a new crop of skilled personnel which the nation currently lacked.
The Rector of the Bolgatanga Polytechnic, Professor Paul B. Tanzubil, said academic life had seen tremendous improvement over the years, adding that the polytechnic now ran five programmes instead of two.
He announced that four new programmes, namely Ecological Agriculture, Industrial Art, Civil Engineering, and Hotel Catering and Institutional Management would soon be rolled out.
The Chairman of the Polytechnic Interim Governing Council, Professor A. A. Alemna, observed that despite the laudable roles envisaged by Polytechnics they were yet to assume their role in national development.