Government has begun the expansion and upgrading of 10 Technical Universities/Polytechnics and 13 Technical Institutes with state-of-the art training workshops and laboratories to absorb more students.
The expansion and retooling project, which is the largest in the history of the country, would witness the expansion and equipping of the laboratories of the Mechanical, Automobile, Welding and Civil Engineering departments of the beneficiary institutions with modern equipment.
The project would be undertaken by AVIC International Holdings Corporation, which government negotiated the contract sum ( as the final sum dropped from US$119,101,946 to US$105 million, representing a savings of US$14 million).
Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, said this when he presented the 2020 Budget Statement and Economic Policy to Parliament in Accra.
He said the completion time has also been reduced from 36 months to 30 and added three extra years to the two years after sale service support and warranty originally negotiated by the previous NDC administration.
Some of the beneficiary institutions include Bawku Technical Institute, Ashiaman Technical Institute, Tema Technical Institute, St. Joseph Technical Institute, Sunyani Technical Institute and Cape Coast Technical Institute.
Others are Sunyani Technical University, Tamale Technical Univerity, Takoradi Technial University and Kumasi Technical University.
The Minister said the foundation for any country's industrialization was science and technology, therefore building the technological capability of the people was the differentiator between developed and underdeveloped countries.
"Government has is resolved that we must complement our advances in human capital in the education sector with a focused pushed to develop our national technological capacity," Mr Ofori-Atta said.
To achieve that feat, he said, Government through the Ministry of Science, Environment, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), would establish the Ghana Design and Manufacturing Centre (GDMC).
A Centre of Excellence in Design would facilitate the incubation of new technological industries and serve as a resource for national research institutions and private industry.