Mr Victor Asante, the Chief Executive Officer of FBN Bank Ghana Limited, has urged corporate organisations and universities to fully integrate apprenticeship into their programmes to build the skills of the county's human resource.

He said even though this was not a guarantee to employment it would, however, equip students with the requisite skills and knowledge for the job market.

“For employers, it will serve as a way of assessing a pool of talent and help identify talents the business will require in the future. In some cases also, it can be used to nurture capabilities, fill the skill gaps and aid succession planning for existing staff,” he stated.

Mr Asante made the call at the Fifth Burgess, Kalinauckas, Adu-Amankwah Memorial Lecture in Accra.

It was in honour of the first three headmasters of the School, Reverend Father Peter Rigby Burgess, Mr Leo Kalinauckas, and Kwame Adu-Amankwah.

The lecture, which was organised by the Opoku Ware Old Boys Association (Akatakyie), was on the theme: “Preventing the Next Financial Crisis - Getting it Right with Training, Education and Apprenticeship."

Mr Asante said the educational framework that produced professionals, especially bankers for the country focused less on internship and apprenticeship, which was key in developing the capabilities of the human resource.

That would also enhance one’s values, ethics and professional attitudes, which were important ingredients to the survival and development of any institution, he said.

Finance and Banking related disciplines, he said, only turned to focus on theories and ideologies with emphasis on profit maximization, firm value and wealth creation with little attention to education on financial history and ethics due to the neo-liberal origins of such theories.

“Therefore, we need to do more to enhance our curricula to ensure that we do not forget the fundamental role of the profession and its impact on society,” he said.

Touching on the recent banking crisis, Mr Asante attributed the situation to weaknesses in the on-the-job training and education, as well as poor corporate ethics from staffs and managers.

He, therefore, called for in-house training for staffs of banks including directors, the regulator and customers, adding that external consultants, mentoring systems, E-learning, apprenticeships and attachments, among others, must be put in place to avoid recurrence of the phenomenon.

He cautioned customers to be wary of investments that promised high returns as they were unrealistic.

Captain Kwadjo A. Butah (Rtd), Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ghana, expressed concern over what he described as the desire for many to acquire doctorate degrees without corresponding efforts at moral uprightness and national development.

This was because ethics education in schools did not receive the level of importance it ought to, as too much time was spent on giving “academics” to students than teaching them moral uprightness and honesty, he said.

He, therefore, proposed an all-round educational system that would serve both purposes.

Mr Michael Osei, the Board Chairman of Opoku Ware School, called on the Government and all ‘Akatakyies’ to go to the school’s aid in meeting its challenges.