The University for Mines and Technology has assured potential students of more technical training for those who will be admitted into the UMaT School of Railways and Infrastructure Development to pursue degree programs.
The school is set to commence academic academic work in September for the 2020/2021 academic year of the university, and the University and the Ministry of Railway Development have been meeting on the way forward.
At one of such meetings on Friday, 19th June, 2020, at the School of Railway and Infrastructure Development, Essikado, where the two parties were finalizing on the way forward, the Vice Chancellor for the University, Prof. S.Y. Kuma assured that the university is creating a curricular that will ensure that their engineering students are really given more technical education than theoretical, in their bid to prepare them for the job market.
“The University of Mines and Technology is the best engineering university in Ghana. Our products are everywhere, and when they go into industry, industries says we’ve been giving them the best materials they are looking out for,” he said.
Citing an example of a situation when one embassy in Ghana needed to get skilled labour for a company from their home country that was coming to set up in Ghana, Prof. S.Y. Kuma said industries attest to the quality of the graduates trained by the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT).
“I was travelling to Accra and I got a call from an Embassy official who said to me, ‘we have heard and we know that UMAT trains the best engineers in Ghana. Can you give us some electrical engineering products and also mechanical engineering products? A company from our country is coming to establish here.’ So I compiled the list and sent it to them and they interviewed them. They came back to me and said indeed you have given us the best materials,” Prof. Kumah noted.
Prof. Kumah further explained that the UMaT has all the necessary set up and human resource to ensure the students who will be admitted into the School for Railway and Infrastructure Development will have the best of technical education; assuring that the Railway School was going to be modelled in such a way that will ensure that students have hands-on experience before they graduate.
“We train people with hands on experience. We have state of the art training equipment and laboratory, so we do not just teach theory but we merge practice into the theory so that when the products come out, they are already almost ready to go. So be rest assured that this Railway School is going to be modelled exactly according to that model of UMaT, and you’ll get products that can do hand work better,” he added.
Minister for Railway Development, Hon Joe Ghartey, who signed the joint press release on behalf of government of Ghana, expressed his excitement at the fact that the school has been redeveloped from the ruins they met in 2017 when they assumed the reins of government in Ghana.
“The school was not doing well during 2016. Like our President said, that one of our tragedies of our post-colonial development is that this place was totally neglected. In fact, in 2000 when I became Sekondi Eleven wise Chairman, we were camping here, and then by the three (3) years that I finished being wise Chairman, we couldn’t camp here again and that everything had collapsed. It was a ghost place; nothing was happening here, and so I’m happy that it’s been redeveloped nicely,” he stated.
Hon Joe Ghartey, who is also the Member of Parliament of the Essikado-Ketan Constituency, added Ghana’s is going to train the human resource needed in a sector that has the potential of becoming a multi-billion dollar one.
“If we don’t do that, I will tell you that we will build a beautiful railway sector and within fifteen years it will be collapsed again and another President will have to come and put some more money in it. We are building a sustainable railway sector,” the Minister said.
He explained that the Government had delayed in bringing the Railway School to function because it involves several due processes which have to be completed before students are admitted to start studying at the school.
“We are building the blocks one step at a time. We are hustling; we are going through due processes. I mean when me and the Vice Chancellor started to speak about this school, if it wasn’t for due process, we would have started something two(2) years ago, and running some certificate program that is not even recognized anywhere. But we took our time, went through the necessary processes, and I am happy that we have laid the foundation for the complete revival of the railway that way,” he explained.
Hon Joe Ghartey said there is a railway revolution currently underway.
“I’m not a revolutionist; am an evolutionist, but that I’ll plead with the revolutionaries to use their saying that there is the railway revolutionary currently underway,” he said, jokingly.