Ghana Employment Association urges polytechnics to focus on science and technology

Ghana Employers’ Association (GEA) on Tuesday called on the Ministry of Education to ensure polytechnics in the country re-focused on science, applied science and technology skills training for their students.

It said this would enable the students acquire employable skills to enhance their employment prospects in the world.

The appeal was made in a statement issued by Mr Alex Frimpong, Chief Executive Officer of GEA, after presenting a report on a study undertaken by the GEA to Mrs Bettey Mould-Iddrissu, the Minister of Education.

The statement said since engineering and applied science professionals such as mechanical, electrical and electronic engineers mostly needed in business and industry were not available, there must be direct government policy intervention to increase intake of students in these areas to reduce such deficits on the labour market.

“This is intended to reverse the current situation where about 65 per cent of polytechnic enrolments are concentrated on business oriented programmes,” it added.

“The changing nature and role of science in society creates potential and major challenges for Ghana in future especially as Ghana has now commenced commercial production of oil. A forward looking science education system is fundamental to our future success in an increasingly knowledge-based world.”

The study was undertaken because Polytechnics in Ghana were established to provide technical personnel to fill the middle-level skilled manpower gap in the country.

This technically minded manpower is expected to accelerate national growth and development, therefore the Polytechnics were mandated to provide tertiary education through full time courses in manufacturing, commerce, science, technology, applied social science and applied arts.

In addition, polytechnics were encouraged to undertake studies in technical subjects at the tertiary level, and provide opportunities for development, research and publication of research findings.

The study critically examined its mandate in relation to student enrolment and graduates produced by the polytechnics between 1996- and 2010.

The statement explained that the study was undertaken because there was high unemployment among polytechnic graduates; science and applied science professionals such as mechanical, electrical and electronic engineers needed by businesses were not available compared to business-oriented professionals produced by the polytechnics, contributing to unemployment among polytechnic graduates.

It was to provide empirical evidence to support the claim that polytechnics were producing more business-oriented professionals at the expense of science and applied science professionals; provide an avenue to review the direction of polytechnic education to encourage enrolment in science and applied programmes to reduce the supply deficit of graduates in these professions needed by businesses to reduce unemployment.

The statement said the findings suggested that polytechnic enrolment was geared towards business-oriented programmes.

Therefore enrolment in accountancy, marketing, secretaryship and management, purchasing and supply is almost three times higher than enrolment in engineering and applied science and technology.

The enrolment in arts is 158 per cent compared to 57 per cent in science programmes.

Analysis of gender dimension of enrolment indicates that there is a surge in women enrolment over the last 10 years. However, the enrolment is skewed towards arts programmes compared to science programmes.

There is also a general trend of increase in the number of graduates produced. Thus there is wide variation in terms of number of students enrolled and number of graduates produced.

During the 2000/2001 academic year, the student enrolment was 18,459, however, only 5,774 students graduated after the three year period.

“Is it that most students abandoned their study before the end of the three year programme? Business programmes dominated the number of graduates produced by the Polytechnics each year.

“That is, 60 per cent of the students graduated in business programmed compared with 40 per cent in science programmes. Among the business programme, accountancy recorded the highest number of graduates.”

The study also examined the phenomenon of “top-up” by which polytechnic graduates enrolled in some universities to pursue a period of two to three years of study in various fields in order to obtain a university degree.

It was realised that some polytechnic graduates enrolled for the top-up programme has been increasing since 2004, averaging 367.2 per cent year.

The main reason cited by the universities which run the “top-up” programme is that they believe that the polytechnic education provides enough post-secondary training to qualify the polytechnic graduates for the top-up programme.

The increase in graduate enrolment for such a programme in universities has raised many questions regarding polytechnic education.

“Is it because polytechnic education does not meet the needs of the world of work? Is it because businesses prefer university degree graduates instead of HND graduates from the polytechnics? Is it because polytechnic graduates find it difficult to secure employment with their HND certificates?” the statement asked.

Source: GNA