Dr. Emmanuel Kwaku Asiedu, the Chief Executive Officer of Gratis Foundation, says Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions must be well equipped with the state-of-the-art workshops and laboratories for the effective training of people who would be capable of leading Ghana’s industrialisation drive.

He believes that just as every medical school has a teaching hospital attached to it for students’ practicals, there should not be any TVET institution without well-furnished and fully functional workshops and laboratories to aid hands-on training of students.

Dr. Asiedu, an alumnus of Sunyani Technical University, was delivering a lecture organised by the University as part of its 55th anniversary celebrations.

The theme for the occasion was “mobilising excellence for leadership in TVET and engineering education for Ghana’s industrialisation agenda.”

Innovations, inventions
Dr. Asiedu proposed that students of TVET institutions must be made to design or come out with an innovation that would solve a problem in society before being allowed to graduate.

He said instead of making such students produce written materials as their project works, they should rather be trained to come out with inventions that would be of great benefit to the country and the world at large.

The CEO, who is also a Consultant to the government’s One-District, One Factory (1D1F) Programme, also proposed that lecturers handling various TVET courses should have at least five years industrial training in their respective fields to put them in a better position to impart relevant skills and knowledge to their students.

In this regard, Dr. Asiedu recommended to technical universities in the country to sponsor their lecturers to industry for specialised skills acquisition to broaden their horizon.

Processing factory
He also suggested that in instances where there is a shortfall of lecturers for certain programmes, the TVET institution could hire the services of practitioners in such areas who may not have the requisite academic qualification to train the students.

He also suggested to STU to consider the setting up of a processing factory to give meaning to its mandate, adding that such a factory would serve as an excellent place for industrial attachment by students while generating income for the university.

Earlier in his opening remarks, the Vice-Chancellor, Ing. Prof. Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah, was hopeful that the 55th anniversary celebrations would increase the university’s visibility as well as bring stakeholders on board for the common good of the institution.

The lecture was attended by both students and staff of the Sunyani Technical University.