ECG establishes relationship with technical training institutions           

The Western Regional office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has embarked on a technical skills enhancement project to give final-year students in electrical engineering practical industrial experience as they prepare to move to the next level.

Institutions

Subsequently, the company last week opened its facilities to technical training institutions within its operational area and also took some students through various operations of ECG.

The move, the company said, was to expand the understanding of students in the areas of electrical and electronic related advancement in technology in the power value chain.

 Speaking after the tour by electrical students from the Takoradi National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI), the Regional Public Relations Officer, Mr Benjamin Quarcoo, said it was necessary to enhance technical and vocational education in the country.

The tour

The students, he said, were taken to the ECG’s transformer repair laboratory district warehouse and one of its major primary substations in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis.

He said the company deemed the training-institution-ECG relations as a step in the right direction and that the first invited institutions were part of several selected to benefit from its open-day exercise.

The visit will be a monthly study tour initiated by the ECG’s communications directorate in collaboration with its Operations and Engineering directorate.

New technologies

“From what we have seen during the interactions, regular and sustained visits wil provide the students with the opportunity to be abreast of current technology in electricity which is not available in their regular schools,” he said.

For his part, the General Manager of the ECG in charge of the Western Region, Mr Emmanuel Ofori, expressed his satisfaction about the impact of the visit on the students and the fact that the students would now appreciate electricity in a broader perspective.

Wires and cables

“Students and sometimes newly employed persons of the ECG always talked about how fortunate they are to be exposed to technology and machinery in the electricity industry which they never believed existed in the country,” he said.

“Most of these students imagined electricity as just wires and cables. The artificial intelligence part of electricity they have experienced has changed their lives,” he said.

Interactions after the tour, he said, gave them broader and varied perspectives in what the future of electricity had to offer them; it’s my hope they will be challenged enough to explore further to come up with innovations to develop the country.

The experiences

One of the final-year students, Ebenezer Quansah, said the tour had given them an understanding of what they had been learning in school all these years.

“As students, we only saw these machines on television, internet and movies. We think it is a good initiative by the ECG and we are really impressed with the technology here,” he said.