Training on Leadership and Management for Principals of Farm Institutes in Ghana
In April of this year MSM’s associate professor of Organizational Behavior, Dr. Stephanie Jones provided a training on leadership and management for the principals of the TVET institutes that are beneficiaries of MSM’s Orange Knowledge Programme project “Reviving Agricultural Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Ghana”.
12 participants from Adidome, Asuansi and Wenchi TVET Colleges attended the training that had to be given virtually due to Covid-19 restrictions. The training was spread over multiple days and focused on five different subjects which were; motivating yourself and others, handling conflict, building a team, changing the culture and how the be an all-round leader.
The topics that Dr. Jones taught the students were among others Ikigai, 8Q’s of leadership, influencing, mentoring and the 7 leadership transformations. To indulge the students into the topics as much as possible the training consisted of a mix of theory, simulation games and reinforcing action to take the next steps.
Gratefulness
Ghana is in majority a Christian country and from her teaching experience Dr. Jones shared that every morning the most senior principal would select a participant to lead the group in prayer. During these morning prayers before class the participants were grateful for being able to take part in the training by thanking the Dutch Government. They blessed Dr. Jones and prayed for their institutes, students and colleagues and asked that their minds should be open and receptive to learning. A new but very nice experience to start the training day said Dr. Jones who has taught classes all over the world.
About the project
In this project Maastricht School of Management (MSM) and consortium partners CINOP, Q-Point, Graafschap College, KNUST, In-Holland, Kwadaso College of Agriculture and Sunyani Technical University join forces to end hunger (sdg2). This will be accomplished through reviving agricultural technical and vocational education and training in Ghana by integrating farm institutions in the wider agricultural education system with public agricultural colleges and universities.
The aim is on enhancing the educational and organizational capacity of the three Farm Institutes; Asuansi Farm Institute, Wenchi and Adidome Farm Institutes. These are currently challenged, as they can’t attract sufficient students. However, the Farm Institutes are very important in strengthening the agricultural potential of the Ghanaian population. Therefore, this project will support them to rebrand the institutes in order to enhance their image, become more attractive for secondary education graduates as well as professional agriculturalists.
Orange Knowledge Programme
This project is part of the Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP) which is funded by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by Nuffic. For more information click here.