The country’s polytechnics have been charged to design creative and innovative programmes that will enable their products to meet the changing needs of industry and society.

They should also create and explore new opportunities for knowledge transfer to make polytechnic education more relevant to society.

Professor R.K. Nkum, Provost of the college of Science of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) made the call at the opening of a three- day retreat and training seminar for deans and heads of departments of the Kumasi Polytechnic at Akyawkrom, near Ejisu, on Friday.

It aims at creating the platform to brainstorm and come up with innovations to positively impact on the future managerial training of the institution and provide the needed skills to facilitate networking among its statutory administrative units.

Professor Nkum spoke of the need for heads of departments to play their roles effectively to achieve the vision of polytechnics because of its importance in national development.

He was not happy that some of the country’s polytechnics have still not been turned into universities in spite of the physical infrastructure and human resources available.

The KNUST Provost reminded the heads of departments and deans of their duty to develop programmes that will attract students while at the same time ensuring high levels of quality, integrity and ethics in all academic work and research.

Professor Nicholas Nicodemus Nana Nsowah-Nuamah, Rector of the Polytechnic, said the training programme on enterprise risk management will achieve its performance targets to prevent loss of resources.

It will also ensure effective reporting and compliance with laws and regulations and prevent damage to the reputation of the institution and associated consequences.

He said the polytechnic had acquired a 300-acre land at Kuntenase in the Bosomtwe District to be developed to serve as the main campus of the institution at an estimated cost of GH¢143,400,000, and called for support from all stakeholders to achieve the vision of producing quality middle level manpower for the country.