Polytechnics in Ghana have lost their way – Power Minister

• Posted on December 2, 2015December 2, 2015
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Dr Kwabena Donkor, Minister for Power, has descended heavily on polytechnics in the country.

He has criticised the polytechnics deviating from their core mandate.

According to him, instead of training technical manpower for Ghana, they are busily churning out business and humanity graduates.

Fuming with rage, the under-pressure Minister, billed to fulfil his promise of ending the country’s power crisis, summed up his frustration with few words.

“In my view, the polytechnics have lost their way. All the polytechnics should return to their core mandate,” he said instructively as if he was the Minister for Education.

The Minister was addressing a forum on local content for the power sector.  It was organised by his ministry in Takoradi in the Western Region last Thursday.

According to him, all the ten polytechnics in Ghana are currently producing business graduates instead of technical minds as initially mandated.

He cited a similar problem encountered by government in the oil and gas industry.

He revealed that many graduates, upon realising the discovery of oil and gas in Ghana, rushed to study oil and gas management both in Ghana and abroad, instead of acquiring skills in the fundamentals to understand the basics of the industry.

He said the technical side of the industry had equally been ignored by many of these graduates, who rather concentrated on oil management, without knowing that indeed the opportunities in the industry centres largely on technical development.

Authorities from Takoradi Polytechnic, who were present at the forum, attempted to convince the Pru lawmaker of the efforts by management of the polytechnics to change the paradigm.

According to them, the curricula used by the various polytechnics in the country were beginning to respond to industry demand, rather than the usual churning out of unemployable graduates.  But the academician-turned-politician would not heed to their argument.

The authorities interestingly ended up conceding the flaws, as the present situation at the polytechnics, which are now at the verge of being converted into universities.

-The Finder