The Accra Technical University (ATU) has held a week-long summer school for its senior staff at its main Tudu Campus in Accra to inculcate in them the core values of the university which include integrity, creativity and excellence.
The second in the series, the summer school further aimed at positioning the institution to becoming a top university in the country with a strong regional influence among other technical universities.
Dr Henry Kwadwo Hackman, Director, Quality Assurance and Academic Planning (ATU), in an interview told the Ghanaian Times in Accra on Friday that the university’s Strategic Plan for 2021 was based on eight pillars, and that the organisation of the Summer School would offer an opportunity for the staff to study in detail what the pillars entailed and the roles required of them to play in the effective implementation of the plan.
He said that the summer school was the best forum to make the staff abreast of the strategic plan to facilitate its best implementation.
Dr Hackman intimated that each of the staff had been provided with the document of the Strategic Plan to enable them to study it well and work effectively with it.
“This time round, we want the staff to own the plan and we have trained them such that they will have a better experience,” he said.
He explained that this was different from what pertained in the past that plans were left on shelves to gather dust and those who were supposed to implement the plans were deprived of the contents of the documents.
He said: “ATU would like to inculcate in the students new attitude, thinking, way of doing things and has positioned itself to serve the public well. The university’s philosophy is to train its students for the acquisition of quality skills for job creation.”
Dilating on the plan, he said that the staff were put into groups and had identified obstacles which would prevent the university from achieving its targets, looked at its capacities and things that would prevent them from achieving their targets, and a new mindset of carrying out their tasks in implementing their goals.
He explained that in order to track the successful implementation of the Strategic Plan, the departments had come up with Key Performance Index (KPI) which would be accessed to ensure that they were on course.
Dr Hackman said that having completed a successful summer school, he was optimistic that the staff would carry out the task for the desired goals to be achieved.
BY RAYMOND KYEKYE
