Energy Bank engages students for internship

Gone are the days when vacation employment was in vogue even for secondary school students.  The civil service and business industries looked for those in the universities like hot cake.

That experience helped many of such young persons to prepare adequately for the world of work before graduating from the secondary schools, polytechnics and the universities.

Unfortunately, the challenges of the economy in the late 1970s to the 1980s eroded these opportunities for vacation employment.

The problem has been compounded by the growing phenomenon of graduate unemployment even at the time the economy is booming with a strong telecommunications sector, an active insurance industry, the banks, loans and saving schemes, as well as the mining industry.

Gradually, the opportunities for holiday employment, otherwise known as internship, is coming back with few organisations making room for students from the universities and polytechnics to undertake industrial attachment.

One of the latest banks that has decided to provide opportunities to dozens of students to undertake internship programmes is the Energy Bank.

The bank has recruited 50 students from five universities for a three-month internship training programme during the long vacation.

The students were selected from the University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ashesi University College, University of Professional Studies and the University for Development Studies.

Under the training programme, which is a pilot initiative to be undertaken annually, the interns would be attached to the various sections and branches of the bank in the country.

According to the Managing Director of the bank, Mr Sam Ayininuola, the initiative was part of the bank's corporate social responsibility to provide training and employment opportunities for the youth.

One of the problems being faced in the country is graduate unemployment but Mr Ayininuola said 'we want to keep them gainfully engaged throughout the long vacation period which could serve as a permanent linkage with the bank'.

He said the students had a future with the bank and that after their studies they could return to the bank to do their national service after which they could be employed.

Asked how the interns were recruited, Mr Ayininuola indicated that it was the bank which wrote to the universities for their release.

'We contacted the universities and gave some minimum grade achievements and then we asked the universities to give us a list of people that met those achievements,' he said.

Apart from the training, he said the bank would give them some allowance for the period they would be with the bank.

The students are supposed to be at the bank every long vacation until they complete their period of studies in the various universities.

On the bank itself, Mr Ayininuola said it was doing very well, and hoped to add three more branches to the seven it had by the end of the year.

He charged the interns to be diligent, hardworking and disciplined so that they would become good members of the society.

The Executive Director of the bank, Ms Ophelia Attobrah, said the recruitment of the interns for training 'is a way of giving something back to the society'.

Energy Bank, she said, was interested in the development and boosting of the economy of Ghana.

'Our board of directors asked us to find something to do and I think this is the best way we can help educate and give the youth skills, knowledge and employment,' she said.

Ms Attobrah told the interns that they were ambassadors of the bank, and so they should conduct themselves well, adding that it was an opportunity for them (interns) to enhance their own skills and knowledge of the banking industry.

By Emmanuel Bonney