Staff of the Engineering Department of the Ho Polytechnic is meeting with counterpart educators from the UK and representatives of industry to brainstorm on making the school's curricula relevant to industry. The two-day workshop, under the theme" Needs Assessment for Professional Skill Development" was brokered by the British Council under the Education Partnership in Africa (EPA) project. Mr Frank Kulor, the Project Coordinator, said the collaboration was expected to create lasting bonds between industry and the Polytechnic to address their mutual strategic developmental needs. Dr Komla Dzisi, the Rector of the Ho Polytechnic, said a deal had been finalized under which the Polytechnic's Higher National Diploma (HND) holders in Building Technology and Civil Engineering would study for BSC degrees at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. He said another agreement hatched recently was for Teesside University to provide training for technician grade personnel for food processing and the emerging oil industry. Dr Dzisi said it was good that representatives of industry were attending the workshop, despite their busy schedules and promised results would be shared with other polytechnics to make easier for students from the schools to secure jobs. Mr Simon Amegashi-Viglo, a Lecturer at Ho Polytechnic, said skills acquired by graduates of technical institutions must be those needed by entrepreneurs. He expressed regret that the practice now was for these schools to produce many who did not have the requisite skills to fill job vacancies and had come out of school only to bloat the roll of the unemployed. The U.K. team led by Mr Gary Humphrey, Manufacturing Innovation and Technology specialist of the City College Brighton and Hove and Mr Mark Thompson is participating in the workshop to raise capacities of the Polytechnic. Mr Humphrey said the workshop would help develop course types to meet demands of industry and networking among stakeholders to sustain the programme. Industrial partners attending the workshop include Cocoa Processing Limited and Nestle Ghana Limited. Source: GNA