Francis Quartey’s story

20th December 2024

Transaid’s Professional Driver Training (PDT) programme in Ghana began in 2021 with funding from the Puma Energy Foundation. The project aimed to improve road safety by raising training standards for professional drivers and concluded in July 2024 with the launch of a new national heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver training standard. Developed by Transaid with input from more than 30 stakeholders, the new standard aims to equip HGV drivers with the knowledge and techniques needed to navigate the roads safely.

Francis Quartey started his career in transport and logistics in 1998, after a friend recommended him for a job. At the time, he only drove light duty vehicles, and didn’t know how to drive HGVs, so he started as a vehicle inspector. After a few years, he was promoted to supervisor and then promoted to instructor and senior instructor. With his company, Francis had the opportunity to travel to Code d’Ivoire and France to undertake training.

Francis learned how to drive HGVs ‘on the job’ while working for his company. Whenever he had free time at work, he would practice driving an old truck with a free driver. Francis says: “Because I was determined to drive HGVs, I was able to within a very short time, and even impart that knowledge to other drivers.”

Francis also enjoyed teaching others, and was promoted due to his ability to explain things well and command respect amongst the drivers. As a driver trainer, Francis used to rely on his own knowledge and didn’t structure his lessons. After attending Transaid’s Training of Trainers (ToT), Francis began using lesson plans:

“If you want to be a better instructor, you should have a lesson plan. You go about it from point to point and in the lesson plan, you allocate time for questions, time to cover this topic, time to do this, and you can go through all your topics in record time.”

As well as creating lesson plans, Francis began carrying out more practical training rather than only delivering the theory lessons, saying: “Practicals are no joke- with the sun, the temperatures here are high. But now I immerse myself fully into them, and it has really helped in my development.”

In addition to learning how to structure his training, Francis believes that the new HGV training standard developed by Transaid will benefit Ghana by reducing road traffic accidents, especially accidents involving dangerous goods. “With petroleum trucks once they have a crash, the next thing is fire. Fire is another matter entirely, separate from the injuries and vehicle damage. Many of the kinds of incidents we have on our roads are just something we could easily avoid, but there’s a real lack of knowledge and education out there.”

“If we test, test, test, before the driver is put on the road, then I think we’ll reduce a lot of crashes.”

Nevertheless, Francis emphasises that new trainers need to be trained to meet the rising demand: “I’m looking at the future and I’m looking at my age. I wish I could have the opportunity to impart this knowledge to as many drivers that I can, but our system is saying that some of these things are becoming very difficult. We have a big challenge in this industry concerning trainers. A lot of institutions do not even offer HGV services. We need to raise awareness of the job and improve working conditions to attract younger trainers.”

Francis is thankful for the training he has received, which has helped his professional development and improved his knowledge of road safety: “To be honest with you, the Transaid training for most of us initially looked like the normal training that we had been attending, but I realised that this was not child’s play.