The Government Technical Institute, Govtech, has called on the government, old students and philanthropists to help the Institute to stock its newly-setup Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre with computers.

The mechanical engineering training school has designated one of its offices to be used as an ICT centre and required computers.

Mr Emmanuel Kwafo Offei, Principal of the Institute, made the appeal during its 55th-anniversary launch in Accra.

He said Govtech since its establishment did not have an ICT Centre to facilitate practical teaching and learning of modern mechatronics.

The Principal added that the teachers and learners relied on a few computers at the Institute’s library to serve the purpose of an ICT Centre.

He said they were hoping to receive 30 computers before the main anniversary on October 28, 2023, so, they could inaugurate the Centre officially as an anniversary project.

The Institute, Mr Offei said, had trained students in automotive and its allied trades – welding and fabrication, auto electricals, and auto body repairs, to meet the technical manpower requirements of road transport sectors of the economy.

He said the Institute had over the years trained more than 8,000 young people in the road transport sector.

‘Academically, students presented for the NVTI and COTVET examinations have performed satisfactorily over the years, with some currently heading their institutions where they are gainfully employed,’ he added.

Mr Offei urged the Ghana Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Service to materialise their proposal for the construction of a 150-capacity hostel facility for students and a one-storey building to serve as a residence for the Vice Principal and the house master.

Master Derick Tetteh, Head Prefect of the Institute, called on Government to retool the library and training workshop centre to aid learning.

He said the two centres since the establishment of the Institute had seen no facelift and were filled with dilapidated and outmoded books and equipment.

He commended the Government for engaging more teachers for the Institute.

The Government Technical Institute, formerly Government Technical Training Centre, was established in 1968 as a result of a joint Technical Cooperative Agreement signed between the Government of Ghana and the then Federal Republic of Germany on December 28, 1966.

However, a supplementary agreement of the main agreement was for the Government of the then Federal Republic of German to supply 150 Albion Buses to the then Omnibus Service Authority (OSA) to augment its fleet.

The Institute was, thus, set up as an

in-service training centre for the mechanics and middle-level technical staff of the then OSA, who were to maintain the buses and also serve as a Centre for the impartation of technical skills to the Ghanaian youth in the automobile and its allied trades.

Source: Ghana News Agency