Kumasi, April 26, GNA - The Ministry of Trade and Industry, in collaboration with stakeholders, is pursuing programmes to improve education/industry linkage in order to produce a skilled workforce to spearhead the industrial development of the country. In this direction, the Ministry is working closely with the Ministry of Education and Sports, the tertiary institutions and the private sector to re-introduce viable attachment programmes for students as part of their course requirement.

Mr Allan Kyeremanteng, the Minister of Trade and Industry, said the programme would offer the products of educational institutions a unique opportunity to have a fair appreciation of what industry expected from them.

These were contained in an address read for him at the first Heidelberg/Publishing studies awards day and 2nd entrepreneurship graduation ceremony of the Department of Publishing Studies of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. It was under the theme "discipline, a vital tool for national development".

Mr Kyeremanteng said entrepreneurship training provided knowledge and skills to young graduates to enter the world of work with self-employment as a viable option.

He said the Ministry, through the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI), was promoting the emergence of a new breed of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) through its entrepreneurship programme to develop the capacities of SMEs to take advantage of the opportunities unfolding in the global economy. The Minister said his Ministry had developed a five-year Trade Sector Support Programme (TSSP) from 2006 to 2010 to increase Ghana's competitiveness in international and domestic markets and improve the legal and regulatory environment for business and consumers. Mr Kyeremanteng commended KNUST for complementing the efforts of the government in making the small enterprises sector the cornerstone of its development agenda. Mr Daniel Christian Dugan, the Deputy Minister of Fisheries, said the government had developed a programme to promote aquaculture to augment the country's fish requirement. Under the programme, nationwide aquaculture training had been commissioned at Kuma Farms Complex at Domeabra, near Kumasi and that about 180 fish farmers had so far been trained at the cost of 400 million cedis. Miss Joyce Aryee, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, said there was the need for effective linkages between industry and academia.

She advised the graduands to discipline themselves in order to achieve their desired objectives in society.

Mr Isaac Kofi Appiah, head of the Department of Publishing Studies, said the department had been selected among two other universities by the Desk of the Publishing Director of the World Bank to present one student per year for five years for internship in the USA, under a three-month scholarship scheme.

He said the graduating students and five lecturers from the department had an opportunity to witness an IPEX 2006 fair, which showcased one of the world's largest printing machines, accessories and equipment in Birmingham, UK.