Confronted with the issue of the country’s increasing population and its related problem of unemployment, the Accra Technical University (ATU) has introduced entrepreneurship programme to prepare students to become self employed.

Under the current trend of business model, the university would eventually develop a curriculum that would train students with the requisite skills to enable them to solve the problem of unemployment and at the same time tackle the issue of environmental degradation. 

Prof Samuel Nii Odai, the Vice Chancellor of ATU, who was addressing the Social Enterprises and Youth Employability; Stakeholders Consultative Meeting in Accra, said the introduction of Social Enterprises Model was the panacea to solving  the problem of unemployed youth in the country.

The programme was organised by ATU in collaboration with Boston University, Huddersfield University, Achievers Ghana, Social Enterprise Programme, and the British Council, as the main sponsor.

 He said ATU would imbibe in the students the skills to enable them to come out with their own enterprises, an enterprise that would have a positive effect on the people in the community   not the business that would have effect on the society and a business that would be sustainable, but not the type which the entrepreneur would be interested in its profit margin.

The Vice-Chancellor said ATU would work hard to become an Institute of Social Enterprise to enable it to play a meaningful role in training the country’s needed manpower.

Mr Andrew Mensah, an official of the British Council, who chaired the programme, said higher institutions that produce graduates with modern skills, required further training to meet the workplace employable skills.

He said while graduates needed to be more employable, the universities needed to produce graduates who would be self employed, but not those who would look for jobs, which unfortunately, were not available.

Mr Mensah said universities were gravitating towards innovation and entrepreneurship, a trend which he described as very encouraging and pragmatic.

He said the universities were required to act as catalysts for change, learning, innovation and commercialisation, adding that they must also play an important role and research in the ecosystem.

Mr Mensah  said in response to the needs of the universities, the British Council has designed the innovation for African universities to strengthen them to develop their capacities as the key players in the ecosystem.

He said the project would foster the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the universities and facilitate the development of skills required to feed industry, company products and services, adding that the objective of the project was to strengthen the universities with their capabilities as key players in the entrepreneurship.

Ms Sarah Teiko of Amartefio Chambers who spoke on the State of the Regulatory Framework of Social Enterprises in Ghana, urged the students not to shy away from forming their own enterprises while they were still at school.

She said young entrepreneurs who employed young graduates and young entrepreneurs who were physically challenged but established their enterprises were entitled to tax exemptions for a period of five years.

Ms Teiko encouraged them to take advantage of the numerous opportunities to establish their businesses, adding that they must take a bold step in doing something which would be of immense benefit to the community.

By Raymond Kyekye