The Ghana Institution of Surveyors (GhIS) has wooed academic staff of the Cape Coast Technical University (CCTU) and the University of Cape Coast (UCC) to join the institution as they transition into professionals.

It said it was necessary for lecturers to expand their scope in that regard to gain practical experience to improve academic work and enhance the quality of graduates they churned out.

Alhaji Daud Sulemana Mahama, President of GhIS, explained that academics doubling as professionals was a critical step to bridging the gap between academia and industry.

He made the admonition when he led the leadership of the Institution to visit the Department of Construction Technology and Management of CCTU and later, the Directorate of Physical Development of UCC to build synergies.

The visit also formed part of a branding process to project the image and authority of the Institution to make professionals the first point of call for surveying services instead of quacks.

Alhaji Mahama noted that the better part of the surveying work was practical in nature and insisted that academic training must be mixed with some practical knowledge.

He observed with concern that majority of graduates were not well-equipped to be moulded into the professionals that the country required.

'For the lecturers who are teaching these students to have that practical knowledge, it is good for them to go through the processes of also becoming members of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors so that at least, we can blend the academic they do together with the practical work we the practitioners do on the field,' he said.

'The students do not put in enough efforts to become professionals and so it is one of the ways to encourage students to be more serious with their learning,' he added.

The GhIS President further called for a partnership between the schools and the Institution in research to inform policy formulation.

'As professionals, we are not publishing enough but we have realised that you do a lot of research that is not articulated for us to formulate policies to help the country in the areas that are covered by surveying,' he noted.

Alhaji Mahama observed that GhIS had not been assertive enough for which reason there were persistent incidents of construction failures such as building collapse in the country.

'Ministries give huge contracts and value for money audits to accounting firms instead of surveyors and the firms later bring the work to surveyors who stand to benefit a little later,' he added.

Consequently, he said surveyors, who provided services to every sector of the economy, needed to work to amplify their voice to issue advice to government on a wide of range of issues.

Ing Benjamin Boahen Akomah, Head of the Department of Construction Technology and Management, CCTU, assured GhIS that it would start processes to encourage the academic staff of the department to join the Institution in the next two years.

Source: Ghana News Agency