On Thursday, 18th April 2025, Guangxi LiuGong Machinery Co. Ltd. (LiuGong) and JA Plant Pool Ghana Ltd. hosted the Vice Chancellors of Ghana’s Technical Universities in Accra for a high-level meeting aimed at establishing a comprehensive partnership to transform technical and engineering education in Ghana. The engagement focused on forming an alliance among LiuGong, Liuzhou Polytechnic University (LZPU), JA Plant Pool, and the Technical Universities, to jointly develop the LiuGong–JA Plant Pool–LZPU International Training Centre, Ghana.
The alliance seeks to leverage industrial capacity, academic expertise, and international collaboration to create a state-of-the-art training ecosystem. The Centre is envisioned as a place for hands-on skills training in the field of construction and heavy equipment engineering.
Under the four-party cooperation model, LiuGong will also spearhead the design of modular training curricula supported by technical experts from China and the Technical Universities. LZPU will collaborate on curriculum alignment, pedagogical training for local instructors, and academic exchanges. JA Plant Pool Ghana Ltd. will host the physical infrastructure and provide technical maintenance support and industrial placement avenues for trainees.
The Technical Universities, under the coordination of the Vice Chancellors of Technical Universities-Ghana (VCTU-G), will ensure alignment with Ghana’s academic regulations and accreditation bodies, while embedding the programmes into existing technical disciplines.
Speaking on behalf of the Technical Universities, Reverend Professor John Frank Eshun, Chairman of VCTU-G and Vice Chancellor of Takoradi Technical University, welcomed the proposal with optimism. “This alliance offers a good opportunity to embed real-world industrial practice within our technical education architecture”, Prof Eshun noted. “This Centre will not merely be a donation of equipment; it represents an active co-creation of knowledge, skill, and innovation between academia and industry,” he added.
Representing LiuGong and JA Plant Pool at the meeting were Tang Qiuxin (Aftermarket Management Assistant, LiuGong Africa), Xu Bingjan (Aftermarket Management Assistant, LiuGong Africa), Tony Zhang Kun Tao (Co-director, LiuGong Overseas), and Deng Jiewu (Co-director, LiuGong West Africa). Their presentations emphasized LiuGong’s commitment to knowledge transfer, workforce development, and sustainable industry-academia collaboration in Africa.
The Vice Chancellors present included Sir Professor Elias N. K. Sowley (Dr Hilla Liman Technical University), Professor Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah (Sunyani Technical University), Professor Gabriel Dwomoh (Kumasi Technical University), Professor Bashiru Imoro Ibn Saeed (Tamale Technical University), and Professor Kwaku Ayim A. Boakye (Cape Coast Technical University). Also present was Mr. Joseph Oti-Asirifi, Executive Secretary of VCTU-G.