Train the trainer – Ghana
With the long-term goal of establishing Ghanaian-run educational courses in oil and gas, Afren has been training people to train others.
In 2009, we worked closely with the Ministry of Energy, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation and a number of academic institutes to examine local training needs and to deliver an initial training programme. The idea is to increase the knowledge of oil and gas in Ghana over the long term – with universities
in the country providing training in the fundamentals of the industry for the nascent Ghanaian market.
This project was a spin-off from earlier research that was carried out under the African Energy Institute initiative, which looked at the need for local capacity building.
The ability to deliver oil and gas training in Ghana is currently limited. However, the demand for such training is increasing rapidly as the local industry continues to grow and evolve. We believe now is the time to invest in local infrastructure to enable oil and gas training to be delivered in Ghana by Ghanaians, thereby helping local people to enter the industry. We would also like to see innovative and effective training techniques used in the provision of oil and gas training. To this end we have been working closely with the Business Performance Institute.
Together we have designed and delivered a training course aimed at teaching a group of professionals from the energy sector in Ghana, together with a number of academics from local universities and polytechnics, the basic principles of experiential learning – a technique whereby course delegates actively participate in the learning process. This increases the level of retention and understanding of the material being taught. The focus of this training was to enable the participants to train others in the fundamentals of the oil and gas industry.
The course was held in Accra and the 22 delegates experienced a week of intensive coaching on how to deliver effective training. The output from the week was an outline teaching plan for modular course units introducing the fundamentals of the oil and gas industry, from exploration through to refining and marketing. The plan is to develop this course outline to allow selected trainers to deliver oil and gas fundamentals courses for engineering students within the existing education system during 2010. The success of this programme will mean there is a core of Ghanaian trainers available to train and mentor the next generation of industry professionals in the country.
