The about $20,000 fully equipped laboratory that comes with robotic and simulation centres, was under the auspices of the STEMpower Incorporated from Ethiopia, for free.
It would give an opportunity to junior and senior high school students in the catchment areas of the university and other schools to have hands-on skills development in technology and engineering also for free.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony on Thursday, the Pro Vice Chancellor, Professor Isaac Boateng, on behalf of the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Frederick Sarfo, noted that AAMUSTED was established and charged with mandate to provide higher education in technical, vocational, and entrepreneurial training, to develop skilled manpower for job creation and economic development.
To train and provide teachers with the relevant competence for teaching in technical and vocational education and training institutions and develop strong linkages between the university and industry or the community to ensure the holistic training of teachers, AAMUSTED, he said, was expected to play a crucial role in facilitating the industrialisation plans of the government to boost job creation and reduce the unemployment situation in the country.
In view of the mandate, he said the university had increased its student numbers from about 17,000 to about 32,000 in just under four years of existence.
“This, by any consideration, is welcoming because it suggests that many Ghanaians have accepted TVET/STEM and Entrepreneurial Development Education as an important means to bring progress to our country,” he underlined.
He emphasised that TVET and STEM were closely related in that recognition of STEM and was based on the remarkable stride that technology hadenabled mankind to achieve, saying “since TVET is technology, therefore, there is no disconnection between TVET and STEM Education.”
He was full of praise for the STEMpower Incorporated for the setting up of the laboratory adding “with this, we are in a position to train our students to acquire robotic and Artificial Intelligence (AI) competencies that are necessary to investigate and engineer practical solutions to our problems as a nation.
“This milestone arguably, positions AAMUSTED as an important next step for all the basic and secondary school students pursuing STEM education in Ghana…with our electrical and electronics programme and its equipped laboratories high-flying, AAMUSTED will come in handy for all the trainees and graduates from these STEM programmes once they decide to pursue those programmes at the tertiary level”, he mentioned.
The Head, Centre for Artisanal Skills Training and Development (CASTD) of the university, Dr Albert Awopone, said the university had already begun exploring the possibility of collaborating with some of the STEM Model SHSs to take advantage of the expertise and facilities to boost the training at the SHS level.
FROM KINGSLEY E.HOPE,KUMASI