Rev. John Ntim Fordjour
The Deputy Minister for Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, has tasked Governing Councils of Technical Universities in the country to stick to their core mandate of spearheading the development of technical education.
He said there was the need for the universities to maintain the high intake of science and technology-based courses and not dwell so much on the humanities.
Rev. Ntim Fordjour made the call on Monday when he launched a five-year strategic plan for the Accra Technical University.
The 66-page Strategic Plan (2021-2025) is centred on eight pillars namely: quality and motivated human resource and effective governance, availability of approved infrastructure and systems, internalisation and the visibility of the university, industry and community engagement.
The rest of the pillars are impact-oriented research and innovation, enhancing students’ experience, finance and staff welfare and support services.
It is expected that the strict compliance of the five-year strategic plan would help push the fortunes and performance of Accra Technical University forward.
The Deputy Minister lauded the 14-member strategic planning committee for their hard work leading to the completion of the new plan and urged them to “do everything possible to ensure that you implement this strategic plan and do not let it be left on the shelf to gather dust.”
He then charged various stakeholders in the school to play their roles effectively to ensure that the implementation brings about massive improvement and transformation in the operations of the university.
The Deputy Minister recounted how some Technical Universities were admitting high numbers in the humanities instead of science and technology which was their main focus.
He stated that the huge investment made by the Akufo-Addo government in the past five years in the Technical Education Sector attest to the interest the President had in turning the nation’s economy around through industrialisation.
The Vice-Chancellor for the Accra Technical University, Prof. Samuel Nii Odai, said with the launching of the strategic plan, everything possible would be done to ensure that it attains higher laurels for the university and the country.
He appealed to all stakeholders in the institution to support the governing council so they would be able to spearhead the development agenda of the university.
The Chief Executive Officer for Databank Group, Kojo Addae Mensah, charged the university to consider looking for other alternative sources of funding and should not be depending solely on government support.
He proposed an increase in the number of fee-paying students which currently stood at about five per cent to about 20 per cent so they could raise enough cash to support their new strategic plan and other development initiatives of the university.