Students Urged to Pursue Engineering Courses

By Benedicta Gyimaah Folley

Students in second cycle institutions have been encouraged to develop self- confidence and pursue engineering courses which played a critical role in National development.

According to Mr Jeffery Coffin, Regional Manager for Knight Piesil (KP) Consulting, West Africa that would enable students take a closer look at the environment, identify issues and constantly work at them and develop simple technologies that would improve upon the living standards of their communities.

Mr Coffin made these remarks in an interview with Ghanaian Times during the grand finale of the 2018 edition of schools initiative programmes (SIP), organised by KP Consulting, an engineering firm focused on the construction of bridges and dams.

The Competition which was on the theme "Dams: A hands- on Experience challenged participating schools to design a model dam for construction.

Mr Coffin stated that the annual contest was part of its corporate social responsibility whereas, it also provided a platform to train students who would want to pursue any engineering related course in the near future.

He lauded the skills showed by the participating schools, saying the level of knowledge demonstrated by the various teams in the contest was remarkable.

Mr Robert Boamah, Chairman of the SIP Planning Committee said the competition was held to promote emphasis on practical training in education as the 2018 edition witnessed previous winners and runners up of the last editions.

He said for the past three years, the project focused on model bridges but this year they decided to make it more challenging, by moving a step further and introducing something new which was also in line with the company's core mandate.

Mr Boamah noted the contest was more challenging, however, the skills and the performance displayed by the participants in this year's edition clearly indicated they had unique skills in engineering which needed to be harnessed to enhance national development.

He urged students who had passion to pursue engineering courses to make good use of such laudable initiative, adding that "for the past seven years there had been more opportunities in the engineering field".

Engineer Ama Nketiah, Senior Project Engineer at KP Consulting also stated that the participating students have had their capacity enhanced to actualise the many dimensions of science learned in class into practical engineering design.

She was therefore hopeful that more female students would develop interest in pursuing engineering courses, adding that there are few female engineers and they are making great strides and this should inspire young females that they are as capable as their male counterparts".

At the end of the competition, Saint Mary's Senior High School (SHS) was crowned champions in the 2018 edition of the Model Dam Challenge.

Other participating schools in the contest were, Armed Forces SHS who placed second, whereas, Presbyterian Boys SHS (PRESEC), Legon and O'Reilly SHS grabbed the third and fourth position, respectively.

For their prizes St Mary's SHS received an air-conditioner, a projector and a projector screen specifically meant for their science department.

Armed Forces took away an air-conditioner and lab tools, PRESEC went away with a projector while Oreilly grabbed an air-conditioner.

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