Creative and employable skills for life : The mission of ‘The Design and Technology Institute’

Progress by any other name is spelt W-O-R-K. And the earlier we let the nation’s youth appreciate the necessity for productive work, the better it will serve Ghana and the rest of Africa. In truth, the fruits of a meaningful education must be seen, not theorised.

The question of what practical outcomes educational institutions must expect as exit points for the youth is no longer an isolated challenge. The more relevant question is how schools can develop curricula that produce skills and material products to keep pace with the needs of a rapidly changing world. Those taught the skills by which to work gainfully and creatively can escape the traps of poverty.

Constance Swaniker’s DTI

That fact serves the mission of  The Design and Technology Institute (DTI), Accra, founded by Constance Swaniker. Bless her heart; she’s introduced vitality extremely rare in the education ecosystem.

In speaking with her, amid the grinding and clatter of her workshop, she said, “We have signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST’s) College of Engineering, and College of Art. Students are coming also from Ashesi; they’re coming from Takoradi Polytechnic, Koforidua Polytechnic. We have kids coming from the north.

I mean, basically, the whole of Ghana. They spend 10 to 12 weeks with us. We throw them into the workshops with our workers. They work on real life projects and they get to feel for the first time working with hand tools, working on a shop floor and producing something. They produce things you can see and use, not just writing things you don’t even understand in a book report.”

She said, “Not only that, it shows them the possibilities of where the careers will take them. Because when I was at Tech KNUST, I just did art for art’s sake. But it was only my experience working in carpentry that exposed me to this. So in my class at Tech we were about 300, only about 2 or 3 ended up in industries; so fast forward, that’s when I realised there was such a gap with no link to the industries, so a lot of people didn’t really know why they were studying what they were studying and what they could use their education for.”

Pointing to the shop floor she said, “This is where we do a lot of the training; more of the practical aspects of what happens in the industry. So we’re doing manufacturing, engineering, we’re doing health and safety, a bit of entrepreneurship, we’re doing all sorts. Everything that happens here is practical, and then the theory.”

Reflecting on the trainees, she added, emotionally, “This is the only opportunity they get to experience what happens in real industry. So you’re not just doing art for art’s sake; but it prepares you for the demands of industry because a lot of times that’s not part of the school curriculum.

This doesn’t happen in school and that’s the problem with what we’re saying about the academic syllabus. How can you do a practical subject if you’re not exposed to environments like this?”

Of theories and unemployment

To unwittingly educate the youth into a life of poverty is bad enough; but to not even see that is worse. In the past, university students – for example - were giving academic education for free and then raised with a sense of entitlement, that is, the expectation of a cool and cushy government office job.

It is now commonplace for university graduates to spend years after their education looking for employment that does not exist, and yet our academic prone universities continue to produce human resource people, marketers, and administrators who can neither be absorbed by the job market nor branch out as entrepreneurs.

The multitude of unalloyed theories cause people to remain stuck, unskilled, unproductive, and unfulfilled. Not grounded in practice, a good many academic degrees are almost worthless; they float miserably with the wind. That is the despair passing for education in Africa, hence the mass unemployment, underemployment and persistent poverty. The sickening irony is that the very same academicians leading and looping those cycles of poverty are the same ones we expect to resolve the impasse!

The students of today, as leaders and productive citizens, need a set of skills that efficiently use our rapidly diminishing resources by harnessing Africa’s collective intelligence. These are the assertive skills for the 21st century.

The jobs paradox in Africa

There is a job paradox in Africa. Numerous positions remain open for technicians, welders, mechanics, engineers, plumbers and electricians, but the number of qualified locals is low. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) reports that less than 5 per cent of Africans enrol in formal technical or vocational training programmes.

Prosperous respectable nations support the manpower that takes care of their basic needs; conversely, to be known and stereotyped as the ones with begging bowls, asking for alms from countries with a work ethic, is a disgrace devoutly to be avoided.

DTI was established as a result of success chalked up in the construction and creative industry by its parent company Accents and Art Limited (AAL). Over the last several years, AAL has provided high-quality training and internship opportunities to hundreds of students from the Opportunities Industrialisation Centre (OIC), National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) and many other technical institutions in Ghana.

Email: anishaffar@gmail.com

Blog: www.anishaffar.org