Albert Kassim Diwura
The Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) has through its Export School introduced a one-year diploma programme in International Trade to provide exporters with the needed knowledge and skill to build successful careers in international trade.
The programme was crafted in collaboration with the Institute of Export and International Trade based in the United Kingdom, as well as the International Trade Centre in Switzerland.
This was in line with a pillar of government’s National Export Development Strategy (NEDS) which recognises the need to build and expand the required human capital for industrial export development and marketing in order to grow export revenue to $25.3 billion by 2029.
Speaking at the launch of the programme, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GEPA, Dr. Afua Asabea Asare, said that the programme ultimately seeks to orient graduates towards transforming the country’s natural resources and raw commodities into manufactured economic wealth.
She indicated that the expected outcome of the pillar is to have a substantial number of trained personnel that would be actively engaged in businesses of industrial export product and service value chain.
“The third pillar involves upgrading GEPA’s Export School as an accredited tertiary institution to provide capacity building initiatives for our exporters.
“In the long term, it is expected that Ghana’s educational system will be re-engineered to reflect the human resource needs to address Ghana’s effort towards an export-oriented industrialized economy,” she said.
Course Coordinator at GEPA, Albert Kassim Diwura, who is also the Deputy CEO in charge of Human Resource and Administration, disclosed that the programme would comprise of face-to-face interactions, online tutorials as well as study tours to manufacturing firms and plantations to give students first hand experience of the export value chain.
“We will also be encouraging students to have peer to peer studies where they would be granted access to our facilities at GEPA,” he said.
Course Coordinator at GEPA, Albert Kassim Diwura granting interview
By Issah Mohammed