Polytechnics urged to design new courses

Koforidua, Oct 4, GNA - Mr Kwadwo Affram-Asiedu, Eastern Regional Minister, on Saturday urged management and staffs of Polytechnics to be innovative and focused, to enable them design appropriate market-fitting programmes, to meet the technological needs of the country, in becoming a middle-income nation by the year 2015. "To achieve this, management would need to continuously remain relevant through specialization of programmes, improve access to many more students into the programmes offered, improve the quantity and quality of programmes offered and provide the enabling environment for teaching and learning through fairness and good policies". Mr Affram-Asiedu who was the special guest of honour at the 13th matriculation ceremony of the Koforidua Polytechnic said in a similar vein, the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) should nurture, protect, guide and encourage Polytechnics to take full advantage of the academic autonomy that had been granted them. He urged that the NCTE should continue to be fair to all the institutions under its care, and ensure fair and equitable distribution of allocated resources. Mr Affram-Asiedu encouraged the National Accreditation Board (NAB) to be proactive rather than being reactionary in their dealings with the Polytechnics on programmes accreditation. "With these perspectives, the Polytechnics would no more be seen as playing second-fiddle, so that people use them as avenues for some other purposes that Polytechnic education was not intended for. "The gap existing between the different categories of tertiary institutions would be bridged, and there would be proper utilization of the scarce resources made available to them," He said. Mr Affram-Asiedu said that would also be a boost to the nation's desire to make science, technical and vocational education in the new reforms, an engine to move the nation into an industry-based economy. Mr Affram-Asiedu expressed worry about acts of indiscipline such as drug addiction, shabby student dressing and occultism creeping into the moral fabric of student life on Polytechnic campuses, and called for a solution to be found to those negative practices. He urged the new students to learn hard to realize the goals they had set for themselves and to ensure that they make the right choices at all times. 4 Oct. 08