Redesign and re-orientate polytechnics - Owiredu

Kumasi, April 29, GNA - Mr Daniel Owiredu, Deputy Chief Operations Officer of the AngloGold Ashanti in-charge of Africa, has called for a concerted effort to redesign and re-orientate polytechnic education to meet the increasing demands of industry and the production base of the Ghanaian economy.

He said there was the need for the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders to create an enabling environment that would enhance effective competency-based training for HND students. Mr Owiredu, who is also the Chairman of the Kumasi Polytechnic Council, made the call at the 4th congregation of the Polytechnic in Kumasi on Saturday.

He said the country's polytechnics specifically held the key to the provision of a very important missing link between effort and the achievement of the desired goals for the national economy. Mr Owiredu said no proper headway was possible for the polytechnics if the country did not make a determined effort at aligning the real needs of Ghanaian industry with the great potential that the polytechnics held as tertiary institutions. He urged Ghanaian industries, which were the end users of polytechnic products to co-operate with the government and teaching institutions to plan out and make industrial attachment programmes for students.

Mr Paul Effah, Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), said the government was committed to ensuring that polytechnics were well resourced to play their expected roles. He said polytechnics had benefited appreciably from the GETfund in the provision of infrastructure and other teaching and learning facilities, adding that, substantial amount of money had also been allocated for research and staff development in the polytechnics. Mr Effah said that would continue to ensure that the polytechnics were efficiently upgraded.

Mr Benjamin Kwesi Prah, Principal of the Polytechnic, decried the low salary levels and poor conditions of service for the country's polytechnic staff and said the situation had made the polytechnics unable to attract and retain qualified staff. He revealed that in the past two years, the Kumasi Polytechnic had lost 30 of its staff to other tertiary institutions and attributed it to poor salaries and conditions of service and urged the government to expedite action on the improved service conditions of staff of the polytechnics. 29 April 06