College establishes industrial and professional relations office

Kumasi, Oct. 25, GNA - The College of Art and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, has established an industrial and professional relations office to link industrial and professional institutions, associations and similar bodies with academia.

The office is expected to organize consultative meetings of college members and industrial experts in various professional fields to help reduce the cost and time of retraining fresh graduates employed by industry.


Professor Daniel Buor, Provost of the College of Art and Social Sciences, who disclosed this on Monday, said the office would also solicit funds to help train and sharpen the skills and competence of both students and staff.


Briefing the press on the duties of the office, he said, it would also liaise with industry and professional bodies to attract resource personnel and industrial experts in organizing seminars, workshops and other educational programmes.

Prof Buor mentioned faculties involved in the programme as the Faculty of Fine Art, Faculty of Industrial Art, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Law, KNUST School of Business and the Centre for Cultural and African Studies (College's Resource Centre).


Mr Ralph Nyadu-Addo, Liaison Officer of the Industrial and Professional Relations, said the recent three-day tour of banks, organizations and ministries by the Provost was yielding good results as 18 institutions including banks, industries and ministries had expressed interest to support the office to establish a symbiotic relations that would be of benefit to all parties.


He said the establishment of the office at KNUST would help co-ordinate activities between academia and industry and also help re-tool and re-shape the various production units at Ntonso, Bonwire, Ahwiaa and the other craft centres where KNUST could help re-train the artisans and add value to their products so as to give them better status on both the local and international markets.