Universities, Colleges urged to review curricula to meet industrial needs
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Unibank, Mr Felix Nyarko-Pong, has appealed to universities and colleges to review their curricula to focus more on the long term development needs of the country.
He said companies were finding many young graduates inept with the needed skills and had to spend money on retraining.
Mr Nyarko-Pong said such lapses in university education was not healthy and called for greater collaboration between the universities and the corporate world in identifying the needs of industry for incorporation into courses and programs of study at universities and colleges.
He was addressing the 5th congregation of the Presbyterian University College (PUC) as the guest speaker at Akropong at the weekend where 300 graduates from all the three campuses of the PUC were awarded with degrees.
Mr Nyarko-Pong said in addressing graduate unemployment, which keeps soaring, there was the need for a change in university education and called for the introduction of the study of French at all levels of education to enable the country to take advantage of the fast integration of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Mr Nyarko-Pong reminded the graduates that although the national economy was booming with cocoa, mineral and oil prices reaching unprecedented price levels on the world market, jobs are not easy to come by and urged them to take personal responsibility and expand their horizon without looking to the government for employment.
The Chairman of the University Council, Mr Samuel Okudzeto, called for the review of the GETFund law to allow it to be used to support accredited private universities who provide opportunities for the increasing number of applicants who are unable to gain admission to the public universities.
He said the PUC had attempted to bridge the gap between the rural and urban divide in getting access to tertiary education by opening campuses in the rural areas with two in the Eastern Region.
Professor Sraku-Lartey, the President of PUC, said in positioning university education to be more relevant and significant to national developmental needs, there should be a clear development agenda to steer the programs institutions should offer in achieving that agenda.
Source: GNA