KNUST to introduce entrepreneurial training

Akuse, Nov. 12, GNA ? Authorities of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) are introducing entrepreneurship training into the curriculum to enable students have the capacity to set up their own businesses after graduation. Professor Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, Vice Chancellor of KNUST announced this at the Fourth Annual National KNUST Alumni Congress at Akuse on Saturday. He said the training would enable the students be fully equipped with entrepreneurial skills, thinking and capability to be on their own. The congress was under the theme ?Enhancing Private Sector Development in Ghana-Role of the Technocrat.?

According to Professor Adarkwa the training would offer them the opportunity to venture into various areas of economic and social interest quickly as desired.

?It would be heart-warming to see the springing up of companies and institutions fully owned and manned by technocrats, either as individuals or as a group,? he added.

Professor Adarkwa said graduates of KNUST had active role to play in enhancing private sector development in the country through the establishment of consultancy firms to offer technical advice on better ways of starting and managing one?s own business.

This, he said would help in the sharing of best practices in technical ideas, skills and experiences to improve on their fortunes and in addition, contribute to the socio-economic growth of the country.

Prof. Adarkwa appealed to the alumni to take up part-time teaching appointments as visiting lecturers over shorts periods of time in the university to augment their efforts considering the few lecturers as against the increasing student population.

Prof. Adarkwa said such an assistance from the alumni would afford them the opportunity to impart their technical know-how to students to enable them have the right and modern attitudes and personality traits required in their professional practice. ?In this way, we would be sure that students we train at KNUST are fully equipped with modern-day skills for their prospective jobs,? he added. Prof. Adarkwa noted that technology had assumed topical dimensions in every discourse about national development that required developing the human resource base with training of the needed manpower resource.

?In this regard, there would be no room for half-baked professionals, but those with the capability as far as their chosen professions are concerned,? he said.

The Vice Chancellor called on the alumni to link the university to foundations and corporate bodies that could enter into partnership to invest in some aspects of its development.

He commended the alumni for investing in a hostel project because the increase in student population did not correspond to the limited resources and infrastructure available.

Prof. Adarkwa said this led to the policy of ?in-out-out-out? where students had their own accommodation outside the campus.

Madam Adelaide Ahwireng, Chief Executive Officer of Fio Enterprise and adjudged Alumni Personality of the Year urged members to venture into private business but added that it required determination, integrity, honesty and embarking on a small beginning and developing it.

She called on students to improve on their skills and English Language, the basic requirements for employment in the private sector.

Prof. Seth Opuni Asiamah, Provost of College of Planning and Architecture, KNUST and National President of the alumni said branches had been established both locally and internationally to solicit for resources to support the university. Mr Paul Victor Obeng, Former Presidential Advisor in the PNDC regime and an alumnus, stressed the need to adopt aggressive programmes to solicit for funds to assist the university.