The University of Cape Coast has held a day’s workshop to equip 45 University staff to teach and conduct research that will impact the employability of graduates.
The workshop dubbed Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Employability in the Food and Consumer Goods Industry was held by the university through the BET Ghana Project.
BET Ghana is a collaborative project between the University of Cape Coast and the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.
The project concerns itself with Building Expertise and Training for growth in the consumer goods and food processing industry in Ghana.
According to research, the goal of most students seeking higher education is to boost their success in the future job market.
Therefore, higher education institutions are being urged to look at where skills demand is growing to prepare themselves to train graduates in these fields, as well as engage in relevant research for the benefit of all.
It is, for this reason, the University of Cape Coast held the workshop for Forty-Five staff drawn from the University of Cape Coast and the Takoradi Technical University.
The participants were drawn from disciplines such as finance, business, science, health, and hospitality.
Professor Ernest Ekow Abano who is an expert task force member under the BET Ghana project explained that the main objective of the project is to apply interdisciplinary research in the food and consumer goods industry to enhance employability.
He, therefore, said, as the university of Cape Coast is spearheading entrepreneurship, the institution must in its dealings ensure that students are better positioned to be self-employed.
He said “we know that the University of Cape Coast now is an entrepreneurial university, courtesy of our new vice-chancellor. And so we feel that everything that we do in terms of research, and teaching, should be such that it would improve and enhance the employability of our students.
And because we know it’s also interdisciplinary, we need all the various expertise with different disciplines and all of that to come on board, to be able to brainstorm and come up with something that is employable.”
This he notes is a step in the right direction to reduce the increasing unemployment situation in the country.
Some of the participants who are lecturers told the news team the workshop will help them to be instruments in helping students to gear towards entrepreneurship to ensure their employability.
One said “We can teach our students to collaborate with their other schoolmates who graduate from the marketing department, accounting, the agriculture departments and come together with their experiences that they have gained in the various programs. Combine it together and come out with businesses. This will help to sustain it since they are having different expert ideas.”
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Source: Rosemond Asmah/ATLFMNEWS
