The Dean for the Faculty of Applied Science and Technology (FAST) of the Tamale Technical University (TaTU) Dr. Adiza Sadik has called on government for more investment into the catering, tourism, and hospitality departments of the Technical Universities.
According to her, the move is important to give hands-on training and skills to the youth in the bid to reduce graduate unemployment numbers. In addition, the youth before they come out of school will be well-groomed in the cultural heritages across the country to shape their activities.
She said this at the 13th annual product exhibition for the final year students within the Department of Hospitality, Tourism, and Management (HTM) at the Tamale Technical University. The event aimed at empowering the young graduates from the technical universities on the need to harness their potentials and take advantage of the opportunities available to create jobs for themselves.
This year’s event was on the theme: “Eat Ghana, Wear Ghana and see Ghana in the midst of COVID-19, the role of technical universities.” It brought together stakeholders from the Food and Drugs Authority, University for Development Studies (UDS), staff and students from the university and invited dignitaries to grace the occasion.
The final year students were made to exhibit their products to seek support to enhance their practical based programme in creating jobs for themselves.
Dr. Adiza Sadik said, the department was committed to training students to compete adding that the department has taken the lead in training its students to be job creators and not job seekers in the hospitality industry.
According to her, the provision of logistics to the students would help them add value to their craft in order to meet the demand of the market to create direct and indirect jobs.
The Northern Regional Chairman of the Ghana Hoteliers Association Cosmos Alhassan commended the department for the tremendous effort in churning out quality products for the hospitality industry in the region and also across the country. He therefore advised the students to take advantage of the opportunities within the programme and the sector to create jobs for themselves without necessarily relying on government.
The Head of Department of HTM, Fatawu Alhassan said the main brain behind the exhibition is to help showcase the products students produce as part of their project work.
“As Technical University, our emphasis is to provide the students with hands-on skills so that when they graduate, they would have something done but not go out looking for jobs and that we would produce job creators. Therefore, if you want to produce job creators, then the person in the process of being trained should know and have the ability to produce to make a living before or after graduating from school,” he said.
He noted that the department is excited because some forms of jobs have been created through the activities. “Ghana as a country, we have relied on foreign products over the years and if we are to continue to purchase from foreign countries, it means we are improving someone’s economy instead of helping our economy to grow,” he said.
