Technical University: Situate Education in the 21st Century

For their final year practical project, a group of engineering students designed and assembled a two-seater vehicle, expected to enhance movement of security personnel on campus. They used scrap metal for the body work, demonstrating waste upcycling. That the learners identified needs in their community and attempted to address such is a target of technical universities, also an expectation Technical/Vocational Education. That the students felt a sense of achievement was so obvious. The elation in their voices was infectious, just as it was refreshing to observe the happiness on their faces as they explained the processes and challenges they experienced whilst working on the project. After congratulating them and sharing their happiness, I asked two pragmatic questions:

What powered their vehicle? “Petrol”, they responded. I continued: In the era of fossil fuel emission, climate change what could have been the best source of energy for their vehicle? They answered: “Electricity”. I could tell immediately that my questions had prompted them to re-think their project. I then advised them that if they revisited and worked assiduously on the concept, targeting electricity, they may even get a collaboration from a car company. I wondered if the supervisor had raised the issues above. They just might have produced the institution’s first electric car. That would have been a feat for that technical university.

                            

Student project in 2019, powered by petrol

Surprisingly, among the teachers of the department are auto-electricians, engineering designers who could have spearheaded an electric car project, an auto-engineer explained to me. He furthered that the institution’s sculpture department, which utilizes fibre products could have utilized that for the body. The welding section could have taken care of the fabrication. This could, indeed, have been an opportunity for a multi-departmental collaboration in applied research. Why did the institution’s Office for Research and Innovation not forge that teamwork?

Initially, I was surprised that all the pointers above had eluded project stakeholders; my surprise turned into pain, and then confusion, as to why these young ambitious learners had been guided into missing a golden opportunity to undertake a project that would have been so relevant to our times, and which could have empowered them with competent industrial skills. Furthermore, producing an electric car, which would have emitted water, harmless to the environment, would have indirectly legitimized the current Government’s agenda on climate change. Instead here is one more petrol-fuelled vehicle which will compound carbon monoxide emitted into the atmosphere.

Indeed, the institutional vision and primary targets come into major play here. Has the institution targeted research in electric cars? What is the mandate of the auto-engineering department? Is that department environmentally-conscious? Does the institution align its engineering targets with national, global climate change agenda? Above all, is the institution’s overall curriculum abreast with the times?

Curriculum practice decrees that curriculum should be lived; in other words, school curricula should align with individual, community, national and global needs. Higher education, especially, has major responsibility in charting quality education that solves societal needs in order to lend quality to human existence.  The technical university concept is rooted in utilizing current technology to provide sustainable solution to human needs, to improve quality of life. Ghana continues to benefit immensely from quality research done elsewhere, which has improved the lot of humanity. So how are our learning institutions contributing to such relevant knowledge? The project in question demonstrates how school curricula can yield moribund outcomes, rather than pragmatic ones.

The teaching and environmental implications of the project are huge and do not even align with national and global environmental protection agenda. At the last Climate Change Summit in Austria, the President of Ghana was eloquent about steps Ghana was taking to protect the environment. In a discussion with imminent personalities, he reiterated, amongst other laudable goals, that Ghana will honour the Paris Accord. However, climate change agenda for Ghana cannot be pragmatically pursued without high-powered research from its higher institutions. So when technical universities fail to engage in research that can effectively combat fossil fuel emission, what does that bode for national efforts to mitigate global warming? 

The question becomes even critical when one considers the strenuous efforts of institutions elsewhere aimed at overturning the effects of global warming. The UK has already launched its first hydrogen powered train, in its bid to address climate change; University of Edinburg is a major stakeholder. On a related issue, Germany is going to phase out diesel vehicles in 2020; an engineer tells me that would pre-empt NOx particles from harming the Oxone Layer. Similar research from various communities has yielded diverse innovations for environmental protection. If a technical university is not actively engaged in research that directly addresses climate change, the least it can do is stop producing equipment that could harm the environment, thus, retard society’s progress.

In even worse situations, I have seen technical university projects in which students assemble rickshaw and other tri-cycles, termed pragia and aboboyaa respectively in local parlance, which all run on 2-stroke engines. One engineer shared that recent research in the country has indicated that carbon monoxide emission from one aboboyaa is equivalent to emission from 3 vehicles. If that outcome is accurate, the situation is simply unacceptable, and I reiterate that that if we cannot help the world fight climate change, then we should definitely not hold it back.

International automobile companies are establishing assembling plants in the country. We can be sure that they will be bringing along 21^st Century car technology. Are the auto-engineering departments across the technical universities imparting current technological skills that would enable their products to compete in such high-tech companies? Are learners being equipped for auto-mobile functions or menial jobs in the car industry? It is about time the institutions paid serious attention to research, teaching/learning for quality input required to produce graduates who can support and transform the country’s industries. Food for thought.