By Nathaniel Glover-Meni
The Rector of the Polytechnic, Reverend Professor Daniel Nyarko, believes that T-Poly will not only saunter to success, but also, he is confident that measures being initiated by his administration will spur the school to advance a new phase in technical education in the country.
Empty promises? Professor Nyarko disagrees, maintaining that his administration will persevere, in line with the Polytechnic’s vision, to achieve excellence in manpower training and action research in order to facilitate the economic development of Ghana in general and the Western Region in particular.
In achieving the objective of rejuvenating the school, the Polytechnic’s management has set for itself ambitious goals, the first of which is the application of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) in the delivery of lessons.
The implementation of this policy will lead to the incorporation of ICT into the traditional mode of teaching by installing LCD projectors in classrooms and lecture theatres to improve the delivery of lessons. The aim is to equip students with competencies that will put them ahead of their peers in a competitive globalized job arena.
Another step that authorities of T-Poly have initiated, which, they hope would cement the Polytechnic’s image as an inspiring centre of scholarship, is the decision to graduate students six months after writing their final examinations. The first batch of such students graduated on December 18, 2010. It was a historic event, as the Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, became the first very high ranking state official to grace the occasion since the Polytechnic gained tertiary status in 1992. This is a positive policy change, as compared to the anguish students had to endure in the past, waiting two years for their results.
It is worth stating that the late release of Higher National Diploma certificates in the past somehow stalled the progress of such students, denying them immediate entry into the job market. It also delayed the promotion of those that came to the school on study-leave, as well as scuttling the opportunity of those aspiring for further studies.
Mr. Michael Okine, who was adjudged the best graduating student with an HND in Statistics, corroborates this view, describing the Congregation as a “unique one” that puts him in a pole position in getting a job compared to his peers in some other schools who have to wait for over one year for their certificates.
Mr. Patrick Dankyi, who graduated with a first class HND in Mechanical Engineering, concurs using the phrase “good” in describing the novel congregation. Dankyi is however futuristic, hoping that the Nyarko administration will not rest on its laurels but will eventually organize congregations within three months after the final papers.
One other initiative being pursued by the Polytechnic to transform the school and contribute to the industrial development of the country is the decision to position the people of the Western Region to benefit from the wealth of the emerging petroleum industry. Consequently, management has launched a number of demand-driven programmes which are geared towards enhancing the skills of the youth to play active and meaningful economic roles for the rapid development of the country.
Among the programmes being mounted are technician courses in process engineering, logistics and transport, aircraft maintenance and welding. This bold foray into the oil and gas sector received the endorsement of the Vice-President, John Dramani Mahama, when management of the Polytechnic paid a courtesy call on him at the Castle, Osu, recently. Vice-President Mahama specifically charged the leaders of the Polytechnic to help train middle level technicians required for the budding industry.
According to him, T-Poly must serve as the pivot in training middle level manpower that the country requires for the oil industry, not because it is the tertiary institution closest to the oil fields, but because of a state policy requiring 90 per cent local content in the petro-chemical industry of the country.
It is essential to state that the attempt to mount oil and gas courses has paid off significantly. One clear dividend of this effort is the resolution by the key partners in the development of the Jubilee Oil Field, led by Tullow Oil, to partner with T-Poly in the area of process engineering. Tullow has since acquired the equipment to be used in training students in the art of process engineering, controls and instrumentation, all key manpower needs of the up-and-coming industry.
In terms of infrastructural development, the Polytechnic is to undertake the modernization of laboratories and workshops, as well as completing on-going projects such as a four-storey School of Applied Arts building. The initiation and completion of such projects will ease the squeeze on such facilities at the moment.
The squeeze on academic facilities has been a source of worry for students. Mr. Godfred Schandorf, the Relations Officer of the Students’ Representative Council, supports the investment in new lecture theatres, expansion of the existing library, and procuring of extra furniture for the classrooms.
Financial Support
Myjoyonline Ghana News Photos |
Responding to these concerns, Mr. Jones Addai-Marfo, the Registrar of the Polytechnic, said the new strategic thrust of the foremost tertiary institution in Ghana’s third largest city, Sekondi-Takoradi, will be on infrastructural development, with emphasis on classroom scheduling and addressing accommodation problems faced by staff.
This, he explained, would require a lot of financial support. He was, however, hopeful that the Polytechnic would team up with some investors in addressing these challenges. This would be in addition to the support it receives from government.
The Polytechnic has also decided to focus on raising the profile of minorities in the next phase of its development, with a possible establishment of a resource centre to cater for the needs of physically-challenged persons, aspiring to earn technician certificates from the Polytechnic. Takoradi Polytechnic is on record as having assisted in the training of a deaf and dumb student in furniture engineering in 2005, and admitted another deaf and dumb student in 2010 to pursue HND in Hotel, Catering and Institutional Management (HCIM). The institution would naturally capitalize on this feat to mount additional programmes for the physically-challenged.
The only female in an all male management caste, Dr Angela Lemaire, agreed that the infrastructure of the Polytechnic must be transformed to enable the school be ahead of its peers. She said the Polytechnic, especially the Business School of which she is the Dean, is one of the most sought after in the country with regard to Polytechnic education. The Business School has about 52 per cent of the Polytechnic’s 8,500 students.
Aside the quality of its teaching, the Takoradi Polytechnic School of Business Studies is also famed for its language laboratory services and also for starting the first non-tertiary course in tourism in the country. The certificate course in tourism enables practitioners in that field, who held jobs without the requisite qualifications in a field considered one of the nation’s leading money grosser, to upgrade themselves. The mounting of the programme therefore helps fill a gaping hole in the manpower needs of that sector.
The school’s secretaryship programme is touted as being probably the only such secretarial school in a Polytechnic in the country with a language laboratory as well as a complementary set of computers, electronic and manual typewriters to enable the students adjusts quickly to whatever working environment they find themselves.
Despite the progress being made, some difficulties remain, with infrastructural development being one of the most challenging. Dr Lemaire also wants the Polytechnic to make a greater foray into research and encourage the regular publication of those works for the benefit of society. The Polytechnic must also place greater emphasis on consultancy, informed by sound research to boost its stature as a thriving academic entity.
Even so, there are still fears that the Polytechnic may miss the opportunity and probably slide into occurrences of students’ unrests arising out of disputes with the then management, a situation that disrupted academic progress.
Professor Nyarko does not share this dim perspective. However, he admits that the Polytechnic has learnt lessons from the episode in question and, as a result, has put in place measures to forestall their recurrence. He called those turbulent periods before he took over as typical of the ups and downs organizations had to endure in the course of their development, though such events are regrettable.
Prof. Nyarko points to the streamlining of academic and administrative structures and the implementation of the Polytechnic’s statutes without fear or favour to any vested interest groups as among the remedial actions that have been taken to avoid students’ disturbances. He is hopeful that this, among the policies being implemented, will transform T-Poly into a quality academic sanctuary, positioned to make its contribution to national development.
Nathaniel Glover-Meni is a Journalist and Relations Practitioner.
that is too cheap
ReplyDelete