President urges Industry to partner with Polytechnics

Tamale, Sept. 8, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor has called on industrial establishments to collaborate with the country's Polytechnics to offer practical training and attachment opportunities for students to prepare them for the challenges on the job market.

He noted that the Polytechnics had already introduced the concept of Competency Based Teaching (CBT) and learning, which he said, if properly implemented could, churn out highly skilled graduates to facilitate rapid industrialisation.

These were contained in a speech read for him by Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister, at the second Congregation of the Tamale Polytechnic on Saturday.

A total of 3,167 graduands were awarded Higher National Diploma (HND) certificates in various disciplines for the period 2003 to 2005. The certificates covered courses such as accountancy, secretaryship and management, marketing and agricultural engineering, statistics, and hotel, catering and institutional management.

President Kufuor said partnership between industry and the Polytechnics would ensure that products from the institutions were of the right calibre and could set up their own businesses and also employ others in future.

He said numerous developmental projects springing up in Polytechnic campuses was the result of government's efforts to improve upon the quality of education.

President Kufuor said recent increases in salaries and professional skill allowances of Polytechnic staff demonstrated government's commitment to the implementation of the proposed road map towards establishing a sustainable formula for enhanced remuneration and conditions of service for them.

Alhaji Seidu Yakubu Peligah, Principal of the Tamale Polytechnic, said six members of staff of the institution had received government grants through the GETFund to improve upon their academic qualifications and status.

He said funds given for the pursuit of academic qualifications were however woefully inadequate and appealed to the government for a substantial increase of the funds to enable many members to study. He said the Polytechnic was currently running a programme on solar energy system, in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to address rural electrification needs of the country.

Alhaji Peligah commended the GETFund for constructing an administration complex, hostels, staff accommodation, an ICT complex, a computer science laboratory and a library complex. He appealed to the government to construct a fence wall around the Polytechnic to save it from encroachers.

Dr Abdulai Salifu, acting chairman of Council of the Polytechnic, bemoaned the decline in enrolment of female students into the Polytechnic, saying that intake had dropped from 28 percent in 1992 to 18 percent in 2006.

He urged parents to take advantage of the Capitation grant to keep the girl-child in School. 08 Sep. 07