The Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 automation solution kit enables electrical engineering students to simulate automation processes for a wide range of industries such as automotive, manufacturing and mining.

Each solution contains a compact Central Processing Unit (CPU) analogue output, simulator module, Ethernet cable and software. Mrs Janina Kugel, a Member of the Managing Board and Chief Human Resources Officer of Siemens AG, presented the equipment to the Provost of the College of Engineering of KNUST, Professor Mark Adom-Asamoah.

KNUST and the University of Lagos were selected as the recipients of the technology in West Africa. Speaking at the presentation ceremony at the company’s office in Accra, Mrs Kugel said the donation of the automation kit was to help KNUST to embark on practical training for the engineering students.

“Education should not be only academic but practical to prepare the students adequately for the job market,” she said.  Mrs Kugel expressed the hope that the equipment would lay a good foundation for practical training at the university, saying the future engineers of Ghana should have experience with the equipment they would be working with on the job market when they graduated from school.

She pledged her company’s commitment to long-term skills training and knowledge transfer in Africa and also continue to invest “to shape a more prosperous future,” for Ghana and Africa. She said Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education was critical to the industrialisation of Ghana and Africa as a whole and there was the need to support more students, especially girls, to pursue those courses.

Mrs Kugel, who visited Ghana to seek partnership with the Government on how to improve STEM education and deploy technological solutions to accelerate development, said STEM education globally was perceived as a course for boys. Prof. Adom-Asamoah, who received the equipment on behalf of KNUST, expressed gratitude to Siemens for the support.

He said the equipment would help promote practical training at the College of Engineering which currently had 5000 students. Prof Adom-Asamoah entreated Siemens to establish a laboratory at the College of Engineering to provide hands-on training for the students, saying the university was ready to provide land for the project.

The Provost appealed to industries to open their doors for the engineering students of the university to do their internship during the long vacation period.