AIT to establish Open University center in Kumasi

The Accra Institute of Technology (AIT) is setting up an Open University center in Kumasi by September this year.

President of the Institute, Prof. Clement Dzidonu says other centers will be established in Takoradi, Sunyani, Wa and Tamale as part of its drive to encourage affordable and flexible access to university education in Ghana.

“The future of education is e-education, from the primary school to the university….There is no future without technology,” he observed, emphasizing that distance education without technology is a thing of the past.

AIT started in 2009 as an independent technology-focused university offering campus-based and open university degrees. It is modeled on internationally recognized institutes of technology like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs).

Prof. Dzidonu says Open University poses no challenge in infrastructure expansion because students need no space to learn.

According to him, Ghana needs to deploy technology to facilitate the country’s development process, stating that every education will be e-learning in the next decade.

“In ten years time, any serious university who doesn’t deploy technology to deliver their programs, whether they are campus-based or open-learning will certainly be out of business,” he stated.

The AIT President noted that Ghanaian students can access high quality programmes from top universities outside Ghana without necessarily traveling outside.

Meanwhile, a former Minister of Communications, Dr. Benjamin Aggrey Ntim, has noted Ghana has a good footing in the deployment of information communication technology in all facets of socio-economic development.

He is emphatic on the application of ICT to make education easily accessible and affordable to majority of Ghanaians.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh

Ghana is producing graduates for yesterday’s jobs – Prof. Dzidonu

A human resource gap analysis is to be carried out this year by the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT) to ascertain the undersupply and oversupply of skill sets demanded by Ghanaian industries.

President of the Institute, Prof. Clement Dzidonu, says the study will inform the country on the reality of graduate unemployment and the direction for tertiary institutions in running their courses.

“Nobody, no where can put a figure on the graduate unemployment and in which area,” he observed.

“The gap analysis basically is ‘what are the demands of industry for particular skills – engineering, business, IT?’ Then we also see what we are producing in terms of the supply. Then we see the gap and based on that we advise universities,” Prof. Dzidonu explained.

AIT as an independent technology-focused university has already undertaken similar study for the Government of Burundi.

 

According to the renowned Professor of Computer Science, Ghana is not producing quality graduates to meet the needs of the economy.

“I think we don’t have graduate unemployment; we have produced a lot of people for yesterday’s job,” said Prof. Dzidonu, noting that some companies in Ghana cannot access graduates to employ because the universities are not producing them.

He cited an instance where an online advertisement by AIT for the position of Administrative Officers attracted over 1,500 graduate applicants within a week, whilst the position of Engineering Lab Technicians had less than 50 applicants – majority of whom were already working.

“The economy itself has transformed,” stated Prof. Dzidonu. “The Americans have shown that in the past where when there is productivity in the economy, it is due to employment; now they are having productivity without full employment, growth without full employment, which shows that in today’s age it’s not the numbers, it’s the quality of the people you produce.”

He believes the application of technology and provision of quality education is the way forward because “there is no point training people either in business, in humanities, in any field without a good dose of IT because I cannot see any serious company today which is not run using ICT”.

He is confident the human resources gap analysis would help Ghana address the problem of graduate unemployment.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh