Catholic University Governing Member pushes for graduate entrepreneurship fund
Sir Dr Kwame Donkor Fordwor, Member, Governing Council of Catholic University College of Ghana (CUCG) has appealed to Government to establish Graduate Entrepreneurship Capitalisation Fund to overcome the challenge of graduate unemployment.
He said such a fund should be managed by the Students Loan Trust in collaboration with a new company to be known as Graduate Entrepreneurship Centre to use the fund in training and providing capital for groups of graduates who have good business ideas to commence their own businesses.
Dr Fordwor who is also a Fellow of Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences made the appeal as guest-of-honour at the Seventh Congregation and 15th Matriculation of CUCG at Fiapre near Sunyani at the weekend.
The University conferred honours on 57 graduates who met the requirements of the institution after successfully pursuing Bachelor of Science in courses such as Public Health Management, Public Health Informatics, Public Health Education, Economics, Management, Computer Science, Banking and Finance, Mathematics with Finance and Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies.
The Institution admitted 789 new students to undertake various courses and that makes the current student population 4,097.
He also urged government to provide incentives to motivate the private sector to help mentor the nation’s young graduates and establish joint-ventures with them.
Dr Fordwor, an economist and baker suggested to the Government to conduct a stakeholder consultation to explore ways of establishing the fund.
He added that Ghana possessed vast resources to enable it turn the situation around, hence there should be a formal way to engage graduates in the application of their knowledge and useful exuberance into productive attitude and national development.
The CUCG Governing Council Member called on Government to identify ways of supporting private universities to train the needed human resources for development, saying that could be achieved through creation of a platform by the government for regular interaction with private universities as a major stakeholder in development.
Professor Ernest Aryeetey Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana in an address read on his behalf pledged the support of Ghana’s premier university for intense research interactions with CUCG.
Reverend Monsignor John Opoku Agyemang, CUCG Governing Council Member who acted for the Chair of the Council, Most Rev Philip Naameh, Catholic Archbishop of Tamale told the graduates that whatever they achieve in life would depend on how effective and judicious they would use the freedom they have now to take decisions whiles effectively applying the training and knowledge acquired from the university.
Source: GNA