Technical Universities initiative response to growth expectations – Mahama

President John Mahama has mounted a strong defence for his administration’s decision to convert Polytechnics in Ghana into Technical Universities.

According to him the conversion will produce the needed workforce for the country’s development.

“The initiative is in response to the expected growth of our economy. The manpower requirements that our middle income economy will require in the next several years and also the urgent need to ensure the training of well-qualified technical and practical-minded middle-level manpower,” the President said.

He was speaking Saturday at the Congregation of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).

The education policy became controversial when some polytechnics were not selected to be part of a list to be converted by September 2016.

Additionally, some academics have suggested that converting polytechnics to universities would fully answer the problems of resource and investment the polytechnics do suffer.

However, speaking at the Congregation, the President said his agenda for economic transformation would need the manpower that will be produced by the graduates from the technical universities.

“The agenda for transformation which is focused on the realignment of the economic structure of the economy from a fully import dependent to a production and export-driven economy is on course and it requires the requisite human resource to drive it forward,” said President Mahama.

The Bill to convert polytechnics to Technical Universities is currently before Parliament.

So far about several polytechnics have been selected for conversion to technical universities.