UG Distance Education students to participate in businesses programme

Accra, Jan. 19, – The University of Ghana (UG) is working with the Office of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP) to enable its Distance Education students to participate in the start-up businesses and incubation programme.

    

Professor Michael Ayitey Tagoe, the Acting Provost, College of Education, and the Dean, School of Continuing and Distance Education, University of Ghana, said such a collaboration would prepare the students adequately towards creating their own businesses and for the job market.

    

The NEIP initiative, which is the Government’s primary vehicle for supporting start-ups and small businesses, is a multi-pronged approach, aimed at creating the conducive and business-friendly environment to stimulate enterprise activities and provide integrated national support for start-ups and small businesses that would in turn generate employment for the teeming youth of Ghana.

    

Prof Tagoe said the School of Distance and Continuing Education, would also collaborate with the School of Education and Leadership to conduct research into graduate unemployment and the transition from school to the world of work.

    

He explained that such a study would go a long way to shape policy on graduate unemployment in the country.

    

Prof Tagoe said this in his closing remarks at the end of the 69th Annual New Year School and Conference (ANYSC) in Accra.

    

He said one of the major objectives of the ANYSC was to shape public policy through the recommendations of the School.

    

He noted that one of the major outcomes of the 69th ANYSC had been the realisation that Government alone could not create jobs; declaring that “The private sector must be seen to be leading the agenda of job creation in Ghana”.

    

“It is our hope that we will be able to disseminate the recommendations widely, and collaborate with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to ensure that the recommendations trickle down to the local level,” he stated.

   

“We will work to ensure that district assemblies adopt the recommendations and ensure that they implement these to transform the lives of our people.”

    

Prof Tagoe expressed gratitude to the two Directors of the 69th ANYSC, Prof Olivia Kwapong and Dr Eric Osei-Assibey, all members of the Planning Committee of the School and the staff of the School of Continuing and Distance Education as well as the College of Education, who worked tirelessly to ensure the success of the School.

   

The Acting Provost said in spite of some hiccups, “All in all, the 69th ANYSC had been successful”.

    

The event on the theme “Job Creation for Accelerated National Development: The Role of the Private Sector”, recorded an unprecedented number of over 320 participants, which is the highest ever over the past decade.

   

The ANYSC is organised annually by the School of Continuing and Distance Education, to provide a platform for a dispassionate discussion of important issues of national and international concern.

    

The week-long event, was under the auspices of Komos Energy, Vodafone Ghana, Goil, Voltic, Daily Graphic, Prudential Bank and the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana.

GNA