55 APPRENTICES GRADUATE AT UMAt (PAGE 20, DEC 9)

FIFTY-four apprentices from mining companies operating in the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality and the Prestea/Huni Valley District of the Western Region have completed a-four year trades men training programme at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) in Tarkwa.
The training programme was organised by the Western Region Traineeship Programme in collaboration with the mining companies which selected the beneficiaries from their host communities.
The aim of the training programme is to provide the country with competent people to handle the high demands of the trade skills required for the mining and associate industries.
The subjects they went through included bench fitting, machining and repairs, engineering drawing and components, engineering science, mathematics, transmission systems, beam, stub axle, steering components and braking system, internal combustion engines and vehicle layout, English Language and report writing as well as hydraulics.
Others were fuel injection systems, heat treatment, welding and fabrication, lifting principles, plant electrics, suspension systems, epicycle gear and automatic transmissions and pneumatics.
The rest were first aid, fluid transmissions, maintenance planning, plant installation, small plant, power shift and shuttle transmissions as well as computer studies.
Since 2002, tools and equipment, computers and their accessories, worth US$ 33,944.62, have been bought for the university to be used in the running of the courses.
In July 2007, the sponsoring companies purchased one double-cabin Toyota vehicle which is being used by the training coordinator to liaise with the companies to ensure effective coordination of the programme.
A ceremony has been held at Tarkwa for the second graduation and certificate presentation to the 54 trained apprentices who completed course programmes at the UMaT recently.
Speaking at the ceremony, a lecturer at the University of Mines and Technology, Mr Bernard Kumi-Boateng, assured the people who did not have any skills to take part in the mining jobs not to be despondent and throw up their hands in despair because they had no formal training for mining, which was a specialised field.
He said there were several sections/departments in the university where these people could be offered less than a year’s programme to give them skills that would enable them to work in the mining industry.
“I can say with absolute confidence that the University of Mines and Technology has departments with competent teaching staff that can train these unskilled people in the communities to fit so well in the various mining industries available in less than one academic year”, he emphasised.
Mr Kumi-Boateng urged mining companies that were not part of the training programme to liaise with the chiefs, opinion leaders and the labour office to identify the unskilled indigenes of the communities in which they operated and sponsor them for the training.
Also, he said, the companies would have to sign a memorandum of understanding with UMaT to train such people while they in turn made some resources available to the university.
He said the companies would have to absorb them after the training whenever there was vacancy in any of the sections for which they had been trained.
The Programme Training Coordinator, Mr James Tettevi, explained that infrastructure development started in the university in 2006 and that the programme had to be moved to the university’s basic schools for classes. The workshops where they had practicals and demonstrations were affected and some practical lessons had to be deferred.
Mr Tettevi explained that the development which had to take about 18 months to complete, ran into years and that now that most of them were being completed, the workshops and classrooms which were used by the programme were now earmarked for other purposes dear to the heart of the university.
He, therefore, appealed to the university to get them additional classrooms, and a room to be developed into a demonstration workshop for practicals.
The Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Chief Executive, Mrs Christina Kobbinah, urged the organisers to ensure the sustenance of the training programme to equip the teaming unskilled youth in the municipality with the required skills to make them productive.
An Assistant Registrar of the University of Mines and Technology, Mr Andrews Doku, said the mining companies and the university were playing very important roles to ensure the success and sustainability of the programme.
He urged the mining companies to obtain permission from the university to construct a big lecture theatre on the campus for the programme.