The Petroleum Commission, Ghana, is considering setting up petroleum clubs in junior and senior high schools to help provide career pathways in the sector for especially, girls.

Mr Egbert Faibille, Chief Executive Officer of the Petroleum Commission, who announced this on Monday at a meeting with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Community women Entrepreneurs, in Accra, said the Commission had identified such petroleum clubs as a need for the young ones, which would help direct them into the choice of subjects to study in school regarding the petroleum sector.

“We have realised that a lot of our young ones in the secondary schools have no idea about career pathways in the petroleum sector and so as a Commission, we have identified it as a need that has to be worked on,” Mr Faibille said.

The Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) in collaboration with the Friends of the Nation, supported by Oxfam, organised the meeting that enabled community members including queen-mothers in the oil and gas areas and other women entrepreneurs to interact with the Petroleum Commission and get a first -hand information about opportunities that were available under the Local Content sector, in the upstream and the value chain levels of the oil and gas industry.  

Mr Faibille welcomed the women entrepreneurs and the CSOs into the Commission and said the interaction was a positive way of engaging with Ghanaians to educate them on the sector, so they could also participate in it.

He said currently, the Commission was working on developing a guideline for the formation of the clubs in secondary schools, where students would be engaged in courses they ought to study to enable them to be gainfully employed in the sector.

He said the Ministry of Education and heads of secondary schools would be informed at the appropriate time so they could subscribe to it.

Mr Faibille explained that the Commission had also identified that the ratio of Ghanaian women in the Petroleum sector was very low, and therefore, there was the need for strategic measures to be taken to ensure that more women undertake courses in Science, Technical, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education to be able to work in the sector as their male counterparts.

He said the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda indeed involved an equal representation of women, who needed the platform that could propel them to also contribute their quota, especially in the oil and gas sector towards the attainment of the agenda.
He said the Commission was, therefore, taking steps to provide more opportunities for girls in the sector, and that was being done deliberately to ensure that many girls study STEM programmes.

Mr Faibille noted that the Commission had recently committed itself to sponsor 10 girls at the University of Ghana to be trained as geologists and in other critical areas of the sector.  

Mr Kwaku Boateng, Director in charge of Local Content at the Commission, who briefed the participants on the various opportunities that existed in the local content Law, said opportunities abound in direct and indirect basis as well as in induced forms in the sector.

He urged the women entrepreneurs to access such opportunities by contacting the Commission to be registered for the needed permit that would enable them to work in the sector.

“The PC has insisted that certain privileges in the sector should be reserved for Ghanaians only and that is what we are here to ensure,” Mr Boateng noted.      

Mr Augustine Niber, Executive Director of CEPIL, described the meeting as very constructive that enable the participants and other CSO members to understand the opportunities in the sector.  

He said a further meeting would be organised for a larger women community members to be able to tap into the opportunities that existed in the oil and gas value chain.