Otumfuo calls for resourcing of tertiary institutions
The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has called for a national forum to find ways of resourcing tertiary institutions, particularly the universities, to enable them to undertake research to advance the national development agenda.
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“That way, the needed resources to advance quality education and research for national development would be assured and made achievable,” he said.
Otumfuo Osei Tutu said there was the need to adequately fund higher education and research to drive effective learning and teaching that would inure to the benefit of the country, saying, “higher education and research are the engine of growth for our national development.”
According to him, “higher education cannot and should not be treated anyhow by bundling it together with other institutions as tertiary.”
Otumfuo Osei Tutu, who is also the Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), was speaking at the 48th congregation of the university on Saturday. The three-day event, which started last Thursday, was organised at the college level.
He said the country lately was experiencing some socio-economic challenges which were impacting on the effective running and management of higher education in the country.
Higher education and research
He said most countries had developed as a result of the premium they placed on higher education and research, and maintained that “our focus must be on higher education and research, the critical role they play in mitigating our development challenges.”
The Asantehene reiterated the call by the Vice Chancellors Association of Ghana on the government to establish a Council for Higher Education and Research (CHER) under the office of the president to take the volume of responsibilities and their associated demands imposed on the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE).
According to him, this became necessary following the conversion of the polytechnics, nursing and teacher training institutions into tertiary institutions.
Internally generated fund
Otumfuo said lately there had been a hue and cry over the internally generated fund (IGF) by the public universities so much so that attempts were being made to amend the law granting them dispensation to keep and apply same for the development of their institutions.
Using the KNUST as an example, he said the university spent about 15,000 dollars every month on broadband services, and “funding for this and other services is from the IGF,” including a number of infrastructural works, support for research and development and a host of others, all come from the IGF.
As such, he said, it was imperative to support the universities to be more innovative in their search for the IGF to promote these good causes.
In a related development, the Provost of the College of Engineering of KNUST, Professor Samuel Innocent K. Ampadu, has advised parents to encourage their daughters to pursue engineering courses.
He said females were as good as males “and that engineering is not solely for males but encourage your daughters to come and read engineering.”
Prof Ampadu was speaking at the 48th congregation of the university, during which 886 students graduated from the College of Engineering.
Female engineers
Out of the number, 83 students, made up of 11 females, representing 13 per cent, graduated with First Class degree; 399 with a Second Class Upper; 370 with Second Class lower and 30 representing three per cent graduated with a pass.
This number, he explained, represented the same number of female enrolment of the college.
He advised the graduands to use the knowledge they had acquired at the university to transform the various sectors in which their services would be required for the betterment of the country.
According to the Provost, “You have been equipped with the basic knowledge to potentially transform various aspects of life in society such as food production and processing, the provision of safe and efficient transport systems, safe water and sanitation, efficient housing and disposal of solid waste as well as the provision of safe and secure environment.”
He thus asked the graduands to step into the world with confidence as “you have the knowledge to potentially operate a transformed industrial sector to exploit and manage the forest, mineral, oil and gas wealth of this country, perhaps better than we have done up till now.”
That notwithstanding, he said societal challenges were becoming more complex and as such would require not just knowledge in a broad range of fields but also how to work in a team alongside other professionals.
“I would also like to caution you that you need the humility to sit at the feet of seasoned engineers to learn the practice of engineering and get your hands dirty at the work place,” he said.
Statistics
In all, 8,055 students graduated from the university this year. Out of this number, 7,215, representing 89.6 per cent, pursued undergraduate programmes and the remaining 840, representing 10.4 per cent, were made of graduate students, out of which 22 were awarded with doctorate (PhDs) degrees.
The Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof William Otoo Ellis, who gave the breakdown of the statistics, said out of the total number of graduates, 5,808 were males as against 2,247 females.