The Vice-Chancellor of Tamale Technical University (TaTU) Prof. Abass Braimah on Tuesday, April 11, 2021, paid an official visit to the Turkish Ambassador to Ghana, Her Excellency Mrs Ozlem Ergun Ulueren at her residence in Cantonment Accra.

The Vice-Chancellor thanked the Ambassador for accepting to host the team at her residence. He said the visit was among other things to discuss cooperation between TaTU and the Embassy.

Prof. Abbas Braimah revealed that the team was to pay a courtesy call on her and also follow up on the earlier visit the Ambassador paid to the University in December 2020.

He commended the Government and people of the Republic of Turkey for their continued support to the people of Ghana particularly in the area of provision of water to rural communities in the Northern part of Ghana.

The Vice-Chancellor praised the Embassy’s strong commitment to establishing cooperation between Ghanaian institutions and its counterparts in Turkey.

Prof. Abbas appealed to the Turkish Ambassador to consider establishing and project TaTU to institutions and universities in Turkey. He said, one key issue that would help boost the capacity of TaTU’s staff would be in the area of vocational skills training.

He emphasized the university’s earlier intention to collaborate with the University of Ankara especially in the areas of faculty to faculty relationships, Ph.D. scholarship opportunities for faculty, student exchanges, joint development of programs, collaborative research, and any other relevant academic modules.

He revealed that the vision of TaTU is to focus on hands-on desk training so that graduates from the university would be highly competitive in the global market.

He highlighted the need for training equipment for students particularly those in the engineering field. The Vice-Chancellor concluded by lamenting how ill-equipped some of the departments are and emphasized his request for support to help equip these departments to the international required standards for teaching and learning.

He said the only way to reduce graduate unemployment and youth unemployment is to strengthen the Technical Universities to produce more skilled-oriented graduates that would meet any international required standard for employment.

On her part, the Ambassador expressed her excitement to the Vice-Chancellor and the team for the reciprocal visit. She also commended the gesture by the team and said this truly demonstrates the level of commitment of the University in getting to establish a working relationship with the Turkish people through her Embassy.

The Ambassador remarked that the visit will further motivate her to show more commitment to getting TaTU to achieve its mission. She said there was the need for TaTU to immediately submit a workable proposal detailing the specific areas of collaborations and cooperation that will guide her outfit in making a university case.

She added that the Embassy had already submitted a request for collaborations on behalf of TaTU to the University of Ankara and currently waiting for a response.

She pledged that there was the need for the Embassy to help upgrade the development gap between Universities in Ghana and the developed world through the Turkish International Cooperation and Collaboration (TIKA).

Her Excellency Ozlem advised the technical universities in Ghana to concentrate on smaller and medium universities for collaborations instead of concentrating on huge and popular universities.

She said the success of technical universities will largely base on smaller industries that are ready and prepared to collaborate with the academic departments especially in the Engineering and Technological fields. The Ambassador pledged to include TaTU as part of a Turkish delegation that is expected to visit Ghana soon.

The Vice-Chancellor was in the company of the Director of Institutional Collaborations and linkages Dr. Abdulai Abdul Mumin, Director of Public Affairs Osman Mubarik Abu, and Dr. Fatima Iddrisu Abu, a lecturer from the Liberal Studies Department.