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ATU signs Mou with 8 companies
Accra Technical University (ATU) has signed Memoranda of Understanding in Accra with eight companies that specialise in craftsmanship.
This was done to deepen the effort of enriching student’s practical learning experience and equipping them for the world of work.
The industry partners included Beniels Designs, Alfie Designs, Royal Dennis, Samson Kreation, Shik Collection, Waxzin Textiles, Furnart Company Limited, and kristo Asafo Technology Centre.
Addressing the gathering, Prof. Samuel Nii Odai, the Vice Chancellor of ATU, expressed his joy for the collaboration and pleaded with companies in this country to assist students.
“Today, history has been made for the number of MoUs that has been signed is a feather in the cap of both parties and would help students and youth of our country with the enhanced skills for nation building” he said.
He stated that this would open up channels for cooperation between the university and the eight entities.
Prof. Nii Odai explained that it was imperative for ATU to collaborate with industry, acknowledging that a blend of academia and industry was one of the sure ways of fulfilling the university’s philosophy of providing relevant technical/ vocational skills for immediate employability or job creation.
Representatives of the partner companies showed their appreciation to the University for formalizing a relationship that had existed between them for a while now through its faculties and departments.
They added that these partnerships would be beneficial to students and staff.
Also, the staff of these companies will get the opportunity to receive the needed academic training and the use of facilities, machines and other equipment as enshrined in the agreement.
Some personalities who graced the occasion included the Pro- Vice- Chancellor, Prof. Amevi Acakpovi, Registrar, Mrs Sylvia Oppong- Mensah, other key officers, Deans and Heads of Department and other members of staffs of ATU.
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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