Former President John Dramani Mahama has criticized government for failure to commission a Technical College of Education built at Abirem in Birim North District of the Eastern Region.

According to Mr. Mahama, the College of Education becomes the second Technical College of Education in the entire country aimed at training technical and vocational teachers/instructors as part of his then government’s broader plan to revamp technical and vocational education in the country.

He said the college was fully completed before the NDC left power on January 7, 2017, however, the Akufo Addo led government has refused to commission the college seven years in power rather converted the place as accommodation for military personnel attached to galamstop operation.

Addressing NDC delegates at Abirem, Mr.Mahama called on President Akufo Addo to open the college for admission in 2023/2024 academic year.

Hitherto, he assured that the next NDC government will commission the college immediately after assuming office on January 7,2025 therefore urged the operation galamstop military personnel to prepare and park out.

“We will start admission into that technical college of education because we have many Technical schools .When you look around Ghana, we have only one technical college of education so the second one is what we built here .So when you go to the secondary technical schools,there are inadequate technical instructors because we have only one college of education producing them”

He added, “galamstop personnel using the facility as accommodation should pack out from the college on 7th January 2025. We will start the admission of the first batch of students when NDC comes into power. But if Akufo Addo is listening to me and he wants to commission the college then he should do so in 2024 to admit students”.

Mampong Technical College of Education in Ashanti region founded in 1922 and converted to college is the only Technical college of Education among the 46 public colleges in Ghana .

In 1967, the college offered the 5 year Handicraft Teacher’s Certificate A. In 1967, the 3 year Post Secondary programme was introduced in the college. In September 2004 3-Year Diploma in Basic Education program was introduced with Technical Skills as an area of specialization.

Currently, Mampong Technical College of Education which prides itself as the only all-male College of Education in Ghana, offers a 4 Year Bachelor Degree in Basic Education Junior Secondary School Programme.

The College has over the years been a trailblazer in piloting programmes for training teachers to handle Pre-Technical Skills at the Basic Level of Education in Ghana

The Abirem Technical College of Education was expected to augment this role but has been abandoned and converted into a temporal military base for operation galamstop.