The University of Ghana has adopted measures towards its aim of becoming the best tertiary institution in Africa.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, said management had set up teams and assigned responsibilities to them to come up with strategies that would advance the vision. He was addressing the congregation of the College of Health Sciences of the university in Accra yesterday.
Teams
Professor Owusu named the teams as institutional advancement team, agriculture centre commercialization committee, university rebranding and marketing team and medicine and dental school expansion team.
The others are the University of Ghana regional and world ranking team, laboratory modernisation team, independent power supply team and the Vice- chancellor’s green team. More than 600 students graduated at the ceremony. university would promote attitudinal change and character-moulding as the underlying theme of all its engagements and also subject its institutions to external review.
Other measures
“Management is trying to redouble efforts to diversify funding sources, manage our financial resources judiciously and have a prudent debt utilisation and management system, aimed at making the university financially viable over the next five years,” he added.
He said other measures were to make the university’s surroundings and environment green and improve upon its global and Africa ranking by aligning budgets to support effective implementation of actions that would promote the core business of the university.
The university of Ghana was, early this year, ranked the best in West Africa and the 7th in Africa, in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.
Professor Owusu said management had begun tailoring the teachings and research in the university to the needs of its stakeholders, while reviewing its curricula to ensure students were equipped with the skillset needed to adapt quickly to the demands of the job market.
He further stated that the school had promoted learning, research and scholarship, by providing the needed enabling environment to maximise achievements and excellence.
Admission
On admissions, Prof. Owusu said the university had made significant progress in reducing the gap in access to higher education between the genders. “At the beginning of the 2016/2017 academic year, for the main campus, Accra City campus, Korle-Bu campus and Distance Education programmes, the university offered admission to a total of 24,312 applicants, made up of 20,621 undergraduate students and 3,691 graduate students. At the undergraduate level 3,841 or 50.47 per cent of the registered students were males, while 3,770 or 49.53 per cent were females. At the graduate level, 1,702 or 57.89 per cent of the registered students were males while 1,238 or 42.11 per cent were females.”
Challenge
For his part, the Chief Executive of MDS Lancet Laboratories, Dr Paul Sekyere- Nyantakyi, addressing the gathering, challenged the graduates to go out into the world and do their very best wherever they would find themselves. “Don’t just walk out of school with your degrees and certificates but exhibit your talents and impact society,” he urged them. Dr Sekyere-Nyantakyi told them that society was enriched by what “sits in all of us’’ and what quality education creates or brings out. “When you get out of quality education your deeds must move to another level that advances your person and the society,’’ he told the graduates.
He, therefore, urged the new graduates to work hard, dream big, plan ahead and be ethical and honest in all their dealings so as to achieve success.
Rev. Prof. Cephas Omenyo (2nd R), acting Pro Vice-Chancellor, congratulating one of the graduates
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