Voltic urges stronger collaboration between industry and academia
Voltic (GH) Limited (Voltic) has called on stakeholders in the education and human resources sectors to bridge the gap between industry and academia.
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This can be achieved if the curricula of educational institutions are designed in close collaboration with industry.
The Country Manufacturing Manager of Voltic, Mr Philip Wellington, said through policy changes, the curricula could make room for the constant assessment and alignment of the demands of the job market vis-à-vis the skills of graduates.
“We have a situation where the universities and other institutions of higher learning train students who are lacking some of the essential requirements of industry.”
“Voltic faced that when we advertised for technicians to be recruited for our machinery only to receive applications from graduates with higher qualifications but with no knowledge of the technical requirements of the job,” he said at the maiden African Research and Innovation Summit for Graduate Students.
That development, he said, created a challenge, where there were jobs but the potential candidates did not have the requisite skills and attitudes to occupy the positions.
“Most graduates also do not seem ready to go through the mill to discover themselves and build their competencies over time.”
“In effect, we have graduates with vague qualifications, who are unable to apply what they have learnt in schools on the job,” he added.
He explained that other organisations could consider various approaches to connect students to the demands of the workplace.
He, thus, entreated tertiary institutions to endeavour to follow up on their students’ performance in the various organisations they are posted to in order to receive useful feedback on the effectiveness of their teaching and learning methods.
Other contributions
The company has also partnered with AngloGold Ashanti Training School to expose its technicians to practical tools as part of training and development processes of Voltic.
The company is also in the process of signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with other technical training institutions and universities for graduate exchange programmes.
Senior management has also been engaging on various platforms to motivate the youth and students as part of the company’s thought leadership drive.
The Institute of Statistics, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana estimates that 60,000 students graduate from the country’s tertiary institutions each year, out of which only 10 per cent get employed after the first year of completing their studies.
