‘Entrepreneurship goes beyond industrial internship’

A business coach and entrepreneurial training consultant, Ms Edem Adzaho, has called on universities in the country to develop what she called “career resourceful services” that will adequately prepare graduates for the job market.

She told the Daily Graphic in Accra that career services were often reduced to issuing practical internship letters to students, but resourceful services would mean giving students the right materials, guidance and linkages. 

“They should have access to right materials such that if it is writing resumes and CVs, there should be several templates of doing that. Staff at the universities should be people who are abreast of trends and can guide and inspire them to aspire higher,” she said. 

The curriculum should also connect them with industry so they could do presentations and tell them what they look out for, she said. 

Ms Adzaho, founder of SPEC Consult Limited, said to address the gap, SPEC had come out with an initiative, the Global Graduate Academy (GGA), to give practical and interactive training to graduates and undergraduates. 

According to her, many opportunities existed just that most Ghanaian graduates were not adequately prepared to be able to take advantage of them. 

At a recent training in Accra, Ms Adzaho said although the world was referred to as a global village, every village had its norms and ethics which Africans had not fully grasped, hence cannot benefit from. 

She said SPEC’s GGA sought to train the next business leaders with sharp skills to be able to compete on the global scale. 

“It does not necessarily mean going out of Ghana but then they should be able to identify the opportunities because non-Ghanaians come here and they see opportunities that we don’t,” she said. 

The academy monitors its students for a year and pairs them up with mentors and coaches from all over the world in careers they wish to pursue.