Stakeholder Discussion On Labour Demands In June � Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama has indicated a stakeholder�s roundtable discussion to find out labour skills demands would be held in June this year. The discussion, which would be at the behest of the Ministries of Education and Employment and Labour Relations, would among other things, dwell on where employment opportunities would be necessary to train more students on. President Mahama announced this when he addressed students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, as part of his three-day official visit to the Ashanti Region. During his stay in the region, the President inspected construction works on the Kumasi airport, roads, schools, health facilities and commissioned a water project at Ashanti Mampong. He also held discussions with party members, inspected and inaugurated projects in selected communities in the region. President Mahama said the current trend where tertiary institutions are churning out students without recourse to skills demands at the job market is not helpful, as most students complete without jobs. The roundtable discussion, he added, would give employers the opportunity to easily acquire labour in the market, and give the tertiary institutions the opportunity to also skew their training programmes in line with the job market. On the Youth Enterprise Support Initiative, President Mahama said, its establishment would also offer the youth the opportunity to develop their enterprises and gain support from the fund to become self-reliant. He appealed to students to take advantage of the opportunity to better their lots and move away from away from the perennial dependence on government jobs. Professor W.O Ellis, Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, said over the past years they spent 5.2 million Euros in re-tooling some of their laboratories to upgrade them to international standards. According to him, an amount of 8 million dollars had also been spent on establishing a state- of-the-art oil and gas laboratory, and refurbishing others for petrochemical and chemical engineering, and appealed to government to offer more support for them to achieve their mandated targets. Professor Ellis said the university had further initiated the process for the construction of a medical complex and a Veterinary Teaching Hospital, and both projects were on-going. Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman, Minister of Education, gave the assurance that government would continue to provide educational facilities that would enhance education at all levels in the communities and urban areas.