Vice-President, Chinese Vice-Premier cut sod for upgrade of 15 Educational institution
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, and the Vice-Premier of China, Ms Sun Chunlan, jointly cut the sod in Tema yesterday for the upgrading of 15 technical universities, polytechnics, technical and vocational training centres in the country to world-class status.
The project includes the construction of training workshops for programmes such as Mechanical, Automobile, Civil and Welding engineering.
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About GH¢50 million would be invested in each of the 15 institutions, which include five technical universities and 10 technical and vocational institutions, and will cover staff training, installation of modern equipment and the supply of spare parts for a period of two years.
Dr Bawumia announced this at the launch of the polytechnics, technical and vocational training centres upgrading project at the Tema Technical Institute (TTI) in the Greater Accra Region.
Beneficiary institutions
The Cape Coast, Kumasi, Sunyani and Tamale Technical universities and the Bolgatanga Polytechnic are among those to benefit from the programme.
The others are the TTI and the Ashaiman Technical Institute, both in the Greater Accra Region; the Komboni Technical Institute in the Volta Region and the Cape Coast Technical Institute in the Central Region.
The rest are the St Paul’s Technical Institute, Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region; the Takoradi Technical Institute in the Western Region; the Kumasi Technical Institute in the Ashanti Region; the Bawku Technical Institute in the Upper East Region; the St Joseph’s Technical Institute in Saboba in the Northern Region and the Sunyani Methodist Technical Institute in the Bono Region.
Support
The project, which is being supported by the Export-Import Bank of China, through a Chinese government concessional loan, is being implemented by AVIC International Holding Corporation, which has commenced work at the TTI.
According to Dr Bawumia, “the nation’s competitiveness depends, to a large measure, on the productivity of its workforce, which in turn rests on the knowledge and skills of its workforce”, adding that technical and vocational education had enormous potential for the development of the human capital for national development.
He said the government was introducing fundamental reforms in the technical educational sector to mainstream it to become the first choice, rather than the last option for students, adding that technical school graduates could also put their expertise to use in initiatives such as the One-district, One-factory policy.
The Vice-President said research and data had shown that for a country to advance, human capital development was key, since “it is the skills of your people that matter”.
Police vehicles
Dr Bawumia further announced that the Chinese government had provided Ghana with 100 vehicles for distribution to the police.
He said the vehicles, which were already at the Tema Port, would soon be cleared and handed over to the government.
Ghana-China relations
For her part, Ms Chunlan said China valued its long-standing progressive relations with Ghana, which she said were anchored on sectors such as education, health, culture and people-to-people.
She said the number of Ghanaians benefiting from education and other forms of support in China annually had now reached about 900.
Significance
The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, said the government believed that for Ghana to leap-frog in its development agenda, there was the need to provide the youth with the necessary training and resources.
He said it was for that reason that the government had made the provision of free senior high school education a priority and was also focused on whipping up the interest of the youth in technical and vocational training to provide them with modern skills to drive the country’s industrialisation agenda.
He said on completion, more than 30,000 students would benefit from the upgrading and retooling of the technical universities, polytechnics and vocational institutions.