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Position polytechnics
to meet manpower needs of the country – Prof. Frimpong-Boateng
Sunyani (B/A), May 2,
Ghanadot/GNA – Professor Kwabena
Frimpong-Boateng, Director of the National Cardiothoracic Centre
at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, on Friday said polytechnics
in Ghana must be positioned for proper orientation to be able to
meet technical, scientific and technological manpower needs of
the country.
He observed that the roles of polytechnics had not been properly
defined because of the absence of credible national science and
technology and industrial policy that would spell out the
functions of various educational and research institutions,
industries and the private sector.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng was speaking at the launch of this year’s
Sunyani Polytechnic Student Representative Council (SRC)/Ghana
National Union of Polytechnic Students (GNUPS) week, which was
under the theme: “Technology and professionalism - the role of
polytechnic education in national development”, in Sunyani.
He said Polytechnics in the country had certain unfortunate
characteristics such as inadequate infrastructure and facilities
for practical training in educational institutions, poor funding
and lack of industries with opportunities for practical
attachment, programmes not tailored to suit the needs of
industries and general lack of orientation.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said “our Polytechnics have been given
approval by the Ministry of Education to run Bachelor of
Technology programmes to enable holders of the Higher National
Diploma to undertake higher academic pursuits in other
universities more readily”.
He described the situation as inconvenient because “it gives the
impression that higher academic pursuits cannot be undertaken in
Polytechnics and that academic pursuit is preferable to
practical training or that the two cannot co-exist”.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng urged Polytechnics to ensure practical
training for students and co-operate with industries to be able
to provide higher academic pursuit to meet the needs of the
labour market.
He stressed that “Graduates of Polytechnics in countries with
well-defined industrial policies and functioning industries
easily find jobs.”
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the University of Mines in Tarkwa
was a typical example of an institution that elsewhere would
have been called a polytechnic or technical university tailored
to develop the mining industry in Ghana, adding “ The fact that
it is called a university in Ghana does not make it superior to
say the School of Mines in Paris”.
He called for resourcing of the Tarkwa University of Mines with
the requisite modern state-of-the-art machinery and equipment to
be able to design, develop and produce mining equipment and
provide studies every thing about mining.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said if appropriate measures were put in
place Ghana should be able to attain self-sufficiency in mining
within 10 to 15 years to avoid the 100 per cent dependency on
foreign expertise to move the mining industry forward.
GNA
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