Kumasi Poly adds 2,500 graduates to the employment market

Ghana’s employment market has an additional 2,500 students joining from the 2014 year group of Kumasi Polytechnic.

The 10^th Congregation of the Polytechnic graduated students who have pursued and completed various programmes, including business administration, procurement and materials management and computerized accounting.

A Special Congregation held earlier graduated Bachelor of Technology (B-Tech) students and others who enrolled in the Polytechnic’s non-tertiary programmes.

Education Minister, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang, is not unconscious that both the public and private sectors cannot employ all the graduates.

“Self employment is therefore the way to go,” she says and has encouraged the graduants to “explore self-employment as an option to public sector jobs which are non-existent”.

The Polytechnic has placed premium on entrepreneurship training and already several graduates of the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (IEED) have set up their own businesses.

Rector of the Polytechnic, Prof. Nicholas Nsowah-Nuamah, says the school’s Institute of Technology has been established to specifically “facilitate the reform of the informal sector apprenticeship training system by introducing short training programmes in the application of modern technologies”.

The Institute currently has partnership with three organizations in the training of electronic gadget repairs, auto-mechanic, CCTV installation and solar system design as well as training in aviation, computer animation, driving and fleet management.

The Polytechnic has also had discussions with industry giants to establish mutual working relations.

But whilst the graduates strive to be gainfully employed, the institutions of higher learning are also hardest hit by the government’s freeze on employment.

According to Chairman of the Polytechnic’s Council, Prof. Kwasi Obiri-Danso, the policy on recruitment has made it difficult for the polytechnics to recruit new staff or replace those who have retired or died.

He has reiterated a recent call by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, for the government to grant a special dispensation for them to fill vacancies of academic staff.

This has become more crucial as the Polytechnic is pursuing the goal of becoming the foremost technical university in Ghana.

“I will not be surprised if Kumasi polytechnic is the first or one of the first polytechnics to be converted into a technical university next year,” said the Education Minister.

The first batch of polytechnics to be converted into technical universities will be announced in 2016 when discussions on the criteria are concluded.

As part of its strategic plan, the Kumasi Polytechnic has acquired a 301-acre land at Kuntenase for the establishment of the main campus of the Technical University of Kumasi (TUK). This is in addition to another 200-acre land at Piase – close to Kuntenase – to serve as the Entrepreneurship Village of the institution.

The focus in the new order, according to Prof. Obiri-Danso “will be not to duplicate what traditional universities are doing but to remain as a true hands-on practical training institution where graduates will be trained to acquire state-of-the-art skills for industrial growth and development”.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh