Design and Technology Institute courts corporate investment for Berekusu Campus

Design and Technology Institute (DTI), a privately accredited Technical and Vocational Education Training Institute (TVET) has opened its doors to the corporate community for investment support to birth its Berekusu Campus.

In a quest to create a new sizeable campus to meet capacity needs, the DTI has secured a piece of land -10 acres – at Berekusu, opposite Ashesi University in the Eastern Region; and is seeking funding and strategic investment to develop the land into a fully-fledged campus.

As the pioneer in the development and implementation of precision quality (PQ) curriculum in the country with funding support from Master Card Foundation to train the youth in high demand technical skills in the TVET field, the overwhelming numbers of interested students – coupled with the need to introduce new programmes – has necessitated the creation of a new campus to accommodate the new grand plan.

Founder and CEO of DTI, Constance Elizabeth Swaniker, speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement to woo investors, reiterated that the expansion was necessitated by the astronomical rise in demand for places from students across all spectra.

She highlighted that the campus is designed as a practice hub, the first of its kind in Africa, to house anchor industry factories and facilities for experimental learning.

“The importance of industry-academia cooperation in driving innovation and growth has been demonstrated all over the world and here at DTI. We, at DTI, believe that partnerships between academic and corporate entities are vital to accelerating research, innovation and product development.

“Our track record is there to speak for itself and we are seeking for support to complete the Berekusu Campus project so to upscale all the wonderful and beautiful things we are doing here on this small campus,” she said.

The engagement, held under the theme ‘Redefining academia and industry collaboration as a driver in building robust TVET systems’, created a platform for stakeholders involved in academia, industry, public policy and private sector to dialogue on collaborative initiatives that can foster effective industry-ready graduate training.

DTI currently offers three programmes of study; namely: Precision Welding and Fabrication; Design Innovation; and Entrepreneurship.

The school has a strong focus on hands-on training and students divide their study time between the factory floor and the classroom. After completing 12 months of dual training, they spend six months entirely in industry, where most of them have ended up being employed even before graduation.

Others have enrolled for Level II of the DTI programmes or have transitioned into the DTI Innovation Hub to perfect prototypes they developed at school for the job market.

DTI was founded in 2016 on the Accents & Arts (A&A) factory floor to provide the youth with work-readiness skills, and to bridge the gap between industry and academia. In less than five years of full operation, DTI demonstrated the powerful impact of focused holistic training toward skilling young people and making them ready for the world of work.

DTI is currently the only dual TVET school in Ghana which provides theoretical and hands-on training within a production school context, the only such institute in West Africa.

In 2020, DTI, in collaboration with the Mastercard Foundation, embarked on a three-year project to create 40,000 job opportunities for young people, with a focus on females and the vulnerable – a target which has been achieved according to assessments by an independent labour economist at the University of Ghana.

DTI’s partnership with MasterCard Foundation under its ‘Young Africa Work strategy’, with an objective of ‘Transforming Youth in TVET Livelihood for Sustainable Jobs Project’, is still on course and DTI would recruit and train 1000 youths in precision fabrication and work readiness, and improve the work skills and practices of 500 master craft persons and 1000 SMEs through the Precision Quality (PQ) training programme.

The institution has partnered with several technical universities across the country and other public universities as well as SMEs and other market women groups for skills enhancement job PQ modelling. The establishment of the Berekusu Campus would undoubtedly be a game-changer in ensuring more lives are impacted.

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