CIB to upgrade capabilities of professionals

The Chief Executive of Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIB), Mr Anthony Yaw Oppong, has announced plans to develop the academic and professional potentials of practitioners in the financial services sector.

That, he said, would ensure that those who were seeking to be practitioners would be well primed to execute professional outcomes.

He was speaking at the seventh congregation and graduation of the CIB in Accra.

In all, 46 final year professional students, in addition to 38 students who took the Certificate in Banking Operations course, graduated.

Strong resolve

Mr Oppong said the CIB would stop at nothing to achieve the objective it had set itself. “We will strive to attain higher heights in the coming years,” he stressed.

Mr Oppong said with the growth in the number of banks in the country, the need had arisen for efficient and well-trained manpower to handle customer needs.

“In this regard, the institute ran training programmes to equip the banking and financial sector’s human resource at various levels within their organisations,” he said.

Collaboration

The Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, in a speech read on her behalf, commended the CIB for the important role it had played in the development of skilled human resource for the country.

She said it was the expectation of the ministry that the CIB would develop closer collaboration with higher institutions of learning to positively influence the curricula of business and finance school programmes.

That, she stressed, could bridge the gap between professional practice requirements and academic programmes.

“With proper alignment, it should be possible for graduates from some academic programmes to obtain partial or complete waivers on professional exams,” Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said.

“We urge closer collaboration because we believe that the job of training in our universities cannot be considered complete without interfacing with professional practice or industry,” she added, and said: “Professional bodies and industry need to work with the higher education institutions to address the graduate unemployment challenge.”

She, therefore, encouraged partnership between universities and industries for critical skills development, education and training.

“The benefits of university and industry linkages are wide reaching and among other things expand the relevance of research carried out in universities and increase the mobility of labour between public and private sectors,” Prof. Opoku-Agyemang added.