WA. Oct. 12, GNA - Wa Polytechnic on Saturday, opened its doors to 665 students to begin a Higher National Diploma programmes in Engineering, Applied Science and Technology and Business, at its seventh matriculation ceremony at Wa. The Acting Rector of the Polytechnic, Mr Solomon Dansieh led the students to take the matriculation oath, which enjoined them to obey the rules and regulations of the Polytechnic. He said ignorance of the regulations or of any public notice would not be accepted as an excuse for any breach of discipline. The Polytechnic was established in 1999 as the last of the ten public funded Polytechnics in the country.

The Polytechnic provides tertiary education in the fields of manufacturing, commerce, science, technology and applied arts and any other fields approved by the Ministry of Education and also provide opportunities for skills development, applied research and publication of research finding.

The Acting Rector urged the students to take advantage of the opportunities offered and study diligently to achieve results, saying that, the knowledge they would acquire would be used to serve the nation. Mr Dansieh told the students that the training they would receive at the institution would prepare them for critical roles in society and also help them to face the challenges of globalization. He mentioned infrastructural inadequacies, inadequate human resource capacities, absence of information technology to enable it reach out to its catchment's area, undeveloped residential facilities, dilapidated communication and transportation system as the major challenges facing the institution. Mr Mahmud Khalid, Upper West Regional Minister, urged the Polytechnics to strengthen its links with industry, to provide on- the- job training for their students through attachment programmes. He urged the students to improve upon the poor performances of the previous batches of students who passed out of the institution. "The performance of the last three batches of the polytechnic's students who graduated with only one first class graduate was not the best." He said apart from good academic performance, he also expected them to have good moral values, eschew occultism and be disciplined by obeying the rules and regulations of the institution.