Technical Universities to increase unemployment rate – Prof. Yeboah Mensah asserts

Former Provost of the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences of the University of Cape Coast, Professor Samuel Yeboah Mensah[/caption] The former Provost of the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences of the University of Cape Coast, Professor Samuel Yeboah Mensah has suggested that the conversion of Polytechnic institutions into Technical Universities will do more harm than good. He was speaking at an inter-parliamentary debate between the University of Cape Coast Parliamentary Council and the University of Ghana-Accra City Campus Parliamentary council. It was on the motion “High Rate of Graduate Unemployment is Caused by the Mismatch Between Knowledge Acquired (curricula) and the Skills Required in the Job Market Rather than Government’s Inability to Provide Employment”. The conversion of polytechnics into technical universities which took off in September 2016, was with the aim of helping reposition them as strategic institutions for the training of highly-skilled human resource to drive the nation’s socio-economic development. But Prof. Yeboah Mensah believes the move will train the ‘brain but not the hands’ and fears that a society which aims at developing only the brains of students is prone to challenges which might hinder its development and progression. Commenting on the theme for the debate “Ghana Beyond Brain Drain”, he said “It’s unfortunate that we’ve converted all the polytechnic institutions into technical universities, knowing very well they will also gear towards the training of the brain and not the training of the hands.” He therefore charged government to put measures in place to ensure  graduate unemployment becomes a thing of the past. “Government has to plan and ensure that graduates that complete the university finds a way of either being employed or finding their own jobs and technical universities should produce graduates to meet the requirements of the industry”. The guest speaker for the debate, the second Deputy Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, Alban Kingsford Bagbin also admonished that society should not depend on  government alone to curb unemployment rate in the country. By Spencer Kwabena Boateng Mensah|3news|Central Region]]>