By: Kingsley Nana Buadu
The Cape Coast Technical University through the Ghana Skills Development Fund is providing skill training for a hundred artisans including a woman for continuing professional development of building and construction craftsmen and artisans in the Central Region (C/R).
The programme which is currently on-going at the University’s Department of Construction Texhnology and Management, is seeking to improve the productivity, competitiveness and income-earning capabilities of skilled workforce through skills upgrading.
As part of the programme, a seminar was organized for the trainees on opportunities for extra curricula learning critical to their practice and professional development as artisans .
A study in Ghana and other African countries suggest that apprentices do not get the opportunity for or participate in complementary off-the-job training courses.
The 12 months project aim at addressing this, target craftsmen and artisans who trained through the informal apprenticeship system, working for wage or are self-employed and who wish to up-grade their skills and knowledge.
The trade areas include masons/tillers, steel benders, plumbers, carpenters, painters and decorators.
The mode of the weekend training programme is a competency based one. The six modules of the programme are reading and interpreting drawings , basic measurement of construction works, estimating , site procedures and occupational health and safety.
The rest are entrepreneurship and ethics for craftsmen and application of ICT in construction.
The seminar aimed at providing the trainees with opportunity for extra curricula learning critical to their practice and professional development.
The Project Leader at the Cape Coast Technical University, Dr. Stephen Agyefi-Mensah , highlighted significance and the benefits participants stand to get.
According to him, “Traditionally, trades and crafts are learnt through apprenticeship, often informal, a system that caters to the skills needs of millions of young people around the world”.
The trainees were taken through topics including benefits of formalizing their businesses and registration process, how to become a professional engineering craftsmen and privileges and responsibilities of joining Artisans Association.
The Executive Director of the Institute of Engineers and Technology, Engr. Seth Ayim, spoke to the trainees, on the importance of becoming a professional engineering craftsmen.
According to him, one critical challenge trainees from informal apprenticeship face is recognition of their skills in the formal market place.
Hence, “joining professional bodies like the Institute of Engineering and Technology, IET after trainings like this is the best opportunity you would ever have”, Engr. Ayim, told the trianees.
The External Field Monitor for the Ghana Skills Development Fund in the Central Region, Stephen Amankwa, said the fund is seeking to build capacities of the artisans to improve their competitiveness and income earnings capabilities.
