KNUST wins maiden GILEC competition
The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST) emerged winners of the maiden edition of the Ghana Inter-University Liberty and Economics (GILEC) competition held in Accra last Sunday.
They were presented with a dummy cheque for GH¢ 10,000 as their awards.
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KNUST emerged winners after presenting a pitch ( ideas or plan) on how Ghana can shift from the current theoretical learning in the country’s educational system to a more practical one.
KNUST was closely followed by the Ghana Institute of Journalism(GIJ), University of Mines and Technology(UMaT) at Tarkwa in the Western Region and University of Ghana,Legon in that order. The rest presented pitches on how to deal with youth unemployment and the galamsey menace.
The competition also saw each university presenting a pitch on how Ghana can solve some of its pressing economic challenges leveraging on the skills and knowledge acquired from the Africa Centre for Entrepreneurship and Youth Empowerment (ACEYE),Scholars Club training programme.
There was also a debate session where the competitors presented scholarly arguments either for or against key economic challenges facing the country presently.
The students also engaged in panel discussions on various topics to demonstrate their knowledge in the philosophy of Free Market and general Economics.
The competition was organised by ACEYE, a Think Tank with sponsorship from Atlas Network , an umbrella organisation for Think Tanks.
Innovative
The Programme Director of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Dr Joseph Darmoe, called on the youth to be agents of change by being innovative to resolve the challenges facing their respective communities.
He advised students to learn how to do voluntary work or internship for organisations to enable them acquire skills and get practical experience to support them on the job market.
Scholars club
The Chief Executive Officer of ACEYE, Emmanuel Acquah observed that young people had been marginalised for long in terms of policy making and decision in the country.
The goal of the Scholars Club training project he noted, which was ongoing in the four beneficiary university campuses was to ensure that students were equipped with relevant skills and knowledge in policy formulation.
Equally important, Mr Acquah said, was to ensure that inspite of the policies available, young people did not depend entirely on government for their survival but also venture into entrepreneurship to create job opportunities for themselves and their colleagues.
The Chief Executive Officer of BlueSpace Africa, a financial technology integration company, Samuel Amanor announced that the goal of the company was to create 10, 000 jobs for the youth by next year.
He advised the youth to come out with business plans and implement them to address little problems in their respective communities such as desilting choked drains and gutters, cleaning beaches to boost tourism and evidence-based reportage on galamsey activities in communities.
