By Hassan Ibrahim Conteh
The dream of the Government Technical Institute (GTI) to graduate to a poly-technical institute has hit a snag after the Ministry of Education declined to grant it the necessary license, the institute’s administration has claimed. They said they have met all the necessary requirements expected of an institute to attain a poly-technical status.
“We’re offering both certificate and Higher National Diploma courses here. So what else do we need to show,” Albert Richard Bernard, Registrar of GTI, said. He told Politico that they’d held a number of meetings and wrote several letters to the Education Ministry regarding the same issue but that their request was turned down on all occasions.
GTI, located at Kissy Dock Yard in the east end of Freetown, was founded in 1964 by Sahr Alfred Jones, a British business man who came on a visit to Sierra Leone. It first started as a trade centre and was eventually transformed into a technical institute under the administration of Mr. Joseph Tejan Cole, the current principal of GTI.
The institute is now being funded and supervised by the government. It has produced many technicians in the country and has won many awards from reputable institutions for its record in the educational sector.
In 2008 GTI won a Gold Medal of Excellence through one of its students who emerged first in the 2007 examination for Diploma level in Painting and Decoration by the City and Guilds Institute of London (City &Guilds).
City & Guilds is one of UK’s leading provider of vocational qualifications which offers over 500 awards through some 8, 500 colleges and training providers to about 80 countries around the world annually. In 2009 the Ministry of Education instituted the National Policy Framework for Technical Education and Training (NPFTET) in order to strengthen and improve technical educational system in the country. That project was funded by the United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
According to Bernard, the document has not yet been fully implemented.
The document basically proposes that government should be able to facilitate, coordinate and establish quality assurance for technical and vocational education. Bernard said things like modern equipment in the workshop have not been provided, among others.
Amidst all this, the GTI risks losing its staff who apparently feel unmotivated. The Registrar said already some of his lecturers had warned him that they would leave the institution if it didn’t achieve its poly-tech status. He said some have already left. The lecturers expect pay rise with a changing status of the school.
GTI boasts of having produced well trained graduates who Bernard said have been performing well in most of the institutions they are employed by. But despite this good performance record, he said there was more room for improvement and that the support of the government was needed especially with regards equipping their workshop.
“We need modern equipment in order to capacitate our students,” he said. “You cannot talk of electrical and electronics engineering without having a complete modern equipment.”
Alpha Tarawalie, an ex-student union president of GTI, lamented that the institution has nothing new to boast of as compared to other technical institutions in other countries. He recalled that GTI used to have a helicopter engine and control machine at the auto- mobile department. But now, he said, the only functional machine in the department the ‘mother machine’.
Mr. Tarawallie told Politico that the electrical control system machine was very crucial for students studying electrical and electronics engineering.
“If you do not have a strong background in the control system you will not be able to work in any factory or similar institutions,” he said.
An official of the Ministry of Education said they were not in charge of granting accreditation status to technical institutions. Brima Michael Turay, Public Relations Officer of the ministry, told Politico that the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) was mandated to do such.
“They are supposed to have written an application letter to the TEC instead of the ministry. If they meet the requirement then the ministry will approve the letter,” Turay said in an interview.
The Polytechnics Act of 2001provides for five merged Polytechnic institutions across the country. Four of these have been approved by the ministry. According to that act, the Freetown Teachers College (FTC) should be merging with the Government Technical Institute (GTI), which will make up the Freetown Polytechnic.
An official at the TEC told Politico that the commission had responded to the request of both FTC and GTI. “We have carefully looked into their letter of request and have responded accordingly,” said Sawyer Josephus, Manager of Academic Programs.
The principal of GTI, Joseph Tejan Cole, said they’d received the letter from the TEC and that they were now waiting to hear from the ministry.
“We are waiting for the pronouncement of the minister in the next couple of weeks,” he said.
(C) Politico 14/04/16
