HIGH DEMAND FOR POLYTECHNIC GRADUATES (PAGE 29)

Story: George Folley Quaye, Wa

THE Rector of the Wa Polytechnic, Prof. Sampson Agodzo, has observed that the demand for polytechnic graduates on the job market especially in business management, engineering and computer science is very high.
He has, therefore, said the situation posed a great competition for their counterparts from the universities with similar qualification.
He said, for example, the Agricultural Engineering Higher National Diploma (HND) graduates had brighter chances in industry, banking and development and the non-governmental sectors where they could be engaged as project officers, as well as in the non-traditional export sectors.
This was because of the technical and practical nature of their training which their jobs demanded, Prof. Agodzo stated.
The Rector was speaking at the opening of the first annual research conference of the polytechnic in Wa in the Upper West Region.
It was on the theme “The growing relevance of polytechnic education in the national development agenda: Challenges for Ghanaian polytechnics.”
Prof. Agodzo noted that polytechnic education was expected to be the route for accelerating technological and economic growth and that the establishment of the polytechnics was expected to lead to increase in the middle-level technical manpower base of the country.
Making a case for polytechnic graduates, he said students in these institutions were also required to undertake intensive study of Mathematics, Science and Engineering as foundation subjects for further learning.
He was of the view that Ghanaian polytechnics produced highly skilled middle-level manpower for the nation’s economic development and that this had led to the empowerment of polytechnics to introduce higher professional degrees such as Bachelor of Technology programmes at the Takoradi and Ho polytechnics.
Prof. Agodzo debunked the notion that polytechnic education was for those who failed to enter the universities and pointed out that this line of education was the carrier-focused type and should play second fiddle to university qualifications.
He recommended that all stakeholders involved in tertiary education use the long-term planning framework to track investments, progress and challenges.