By Amanuel Endris,
The EASTRIP at Kombolcha Polytechnic College’s held its performance progress review meeting with the industry advisory board, management members and other key stake holders at Alem Hotel, located in Dessie Town.
The Dean of Kombolcha Polytechnic College, Mr. Melaku Aragaw, welcomed the participants to the meeting to review the progress of EASTRIPand briefed them about achievements of the project since inception. He also underscored the immense importance the project has had not only to the college but also to the local community, region and the country at large.
Participants during the project review meeting
According to Mr. Melaku, Kombolcha Polytechnic College provides various short term trainings, and is currently working on the EASTRIP project, which is being implemented to improve the capacity of selected technical vocational education and training (TVET) colleges in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, to become a center of excellence in East Africa.
He said that the project is to make the college’s automotive department a center of excellence by constructing modern buildings which would enable it to train foreign students particularly trainees from Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. Mr. Melaku added that a tender has been issued to commence the construction of the building soon and the work of identifying the winner of the tender is being done.
Mr Yilikal Tesfaye, the EATRIP Project Coordinator at Kombolcha Polytechnic College presented a synopsis of the project performance and progress. Mr. Yilikal highlighted some of the activities carried out so far, such as sending automotive trainers to Kenya for experience exchange, preparing a short term training curriculum, conducting a tracer study, providing training to enhance the capacity of the management and industry advisory board members, conducting a financial and technical tender to start construction and sending it to the World Bank for approval.
On the other hand, the project coordinator mentioned that the college was in a war zone and the destruction of machineries caused some delay in carrying out some activities within the set time limit.
In connection with this, it is said that the construction will be completed in the remaining two years, and work will be done to complete purchase of the machinery and laboratory equipment that will be able to provide quality training by being competitive in the job market.
Although the training machines of the college were destroyed due to the war in the area, the participants appreciated that it is encouraging that the college is working with various partner organizations to provide better and modern machines in all fields of training.
The manager of the Federal Industrial Park and member of the industrial board of the college, Mr. Mulugeta Mekonen, mentioned that the works done by the college since the preparation of the tender documents were encouraging and suggest that the construction of the project should start soon. He said that the college should go into construction soon to avoid delay.
Finally, Mr. Abdu Cheru, the head of Kombolcha city administration’s Labour and Training Department and chairman of the college’s board, said that the college and the city administration will work together to complete this project within the scheduled time frame.
The Writer is the Public relations Officer for Kombolcha Polytechnic College