GRATIS to become university college next year

GRATIS, an agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, is to begin a university programme by January 2017.

To be known as the GRATIS University College of Applied Technology, the university will have campuses in all the 10 regions.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GRATIS, formerly the Ghana Regional Appropriate Technology Industrial Service (GRATIS) Foundation, Mr Emmanuel Asiedu, who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said GRATIS had already received accreditation from the National Accreditation Board (NAB) to implement the university programme.

GRATIS, he said, was working around the clock to ensure that it admitted its first-year students by January, 2017.

The first campus, which would be sited in Koforidua, according to Mr Asiedu, had already been furnished with support from the  Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and Plan Ghana.

The Koforidua campus, he said, would focus on automobile engineering, adding that each of the regional campuses would have its own specialised programme area to train students for a specific job market.

About GRATIS

GRATIS evolved out of the Ghana Regional Appropriate Technology Industrial Service (GRATIS) Project, which was established by the government in 1987 to promote small-scale industrialisation in Ghana.

To accomplish the mandate, GRATIS established Intermediate Technology Transfer Units (ITTUs), now designated Regional Technology Transfer Centres (RTTCs), in nine regions of Ghana to transfer appropriate technologies to small-scale industrialists through training, manufacturing and the supply of machine tools, plants and equipment.