Produce quality human resource to advance national development
The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has challenged universities to produce quality human resource to advance the country into an upper middle-level economy.
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He expressed concern about the low numbers of PhD students in the country’s universities.
For instance, he said, South Africa was producing 25 per cent PhD holders per a million people on the average, while Ghana’s rate of producing PhD holders was three to five per cent per a million people.
In a message delivered on his behalf at the 12th session of the 49th congregation of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Dr Prempeh said he was, however, happy that there were indications that the country was working on improving the figures.
Graduands
In all, 2,214 students graduated with various postgraduate degrees. Out of the number, 51 received doctorate (PhD) degrees, while the rest graduated with MPhil, MBA, MA and MSc degrees.
He congratulated the university on graduating such a sizable number of graduates but charged universities in the country to do self-retrospection to find out the causes of such low enrolments at the PhD level.
Dr Prempeh said as the country aimed at attaining an upper middle-level income economy, “our universities must of necessity also aim to become world-class research-intensive universities aiming to achieve graduate enrolment, especially in the sciences and technology of at least 25 per cent.”
National Research Fund
He announced that the government would ensure that the National Research Fund was fully implemented.
Dr Prempeh explained that the national research fund would provide funding for faculties and students at the graduate level.
He explained that it was a broader merit-based initiative, designed to encourage continuous research in key priority areas of the economy.
Core mandate
The Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, said in line with its core mandate and the corporate strategic thrust of the university, the School of Graduate Studies had focused on graduating students with strong ethics and commitment to society.
He said there was a shift in numbers of the total enrolment from the regular mode to the sandwich and distance modes, signalling the need to reposition itself as a university, “to meet this shift in demand for graduate education.”
Pool of overstayed students
Prof. Ampiah announced that the pool of overstayed students was being drained, leading to improvement in completion rate of graduate programmes.
“This means students now stay less beyond the statutory duration on their respective programmes. This was achieved through new policies and improvement of research facilities which inured to the benefit of graduate students,” he said.
He said for many years now, the entire School of Graduate Studies “was boxed in a three normal bedroom-sized offices,” but was grateful to the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) and the management of UCC, for providing the School with a permanent solution to its problem of lack of physical visibility.
Role of university education
The Chancellor of the university, Sir Dr Sam Esson Jonah, said universities had critical roles in supporting knowledge-driven economic growth strategies and the construction of democratic, socially cohesive societies.
He called on tertiary institutions to respond effectively to changing needs and trends in education, as well as changing information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Advice to graduates
Dr Jonah advised the graduates to be mindful of the merging of more innovative ways of doing business and spectacular technologies and urged them to be “among the 21st century think tanks who engineer such progress.”
