By Akosua Frema Frempong
In keeping with its vision of becoming a world-class technical university, Kumasi Technical University has introduced 11 new academic programmes.
The new programmes together with the existing ones, drive and address Africa’s technology challenges. This came to light at the 19th Congregation of the university.
More than 2,000 students graduated from Kumasi Technical University at its 19th Congregation. They comprise those who completed their various programmes of study in the 2021/2022 academic year. The programme categories were the Higher National Diploma, the Commission of Technical Vocational Education Training, and the C-TVET Diploma programmes.
With the introduction of the new programmes, the University currently runs 76 programmes.
Speaking at the congregation, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Engineer Professor Osei-Wusu Achaw announced that the institution is the first public technical university in West Africa to introduce a bachelor’s degree programme in artificial intelligence.
“Following approvals from GTEC, the university has introduced eleven new programmes in its programme offer. These include master’s programmes, namely MSc Accounting Information Systems, six undergraduate programmes, three Diploma programmes and a Pre-Engineering programme.
The Pre-Engineering programme provides an avenue for non-science students to live their dreams of studying engineering programmes in spite of their non-science backgrounds.
With the introduction of these new programmes, the university currently runs 79 programmes made up of seven master’s programmes, 38 Bachelor’s programmes, 25 HND programmes, three tertiary diploma programmes and 17 non-tertiary Diploma Programmes.
In addition, the university runs 11 technician programmes.
We are arguably the TechnicalUniversity running the most programmes among all the Technical Universities in Ghana. The New programmes we have introduced this academic year include Building Services Engineering, Architectural Engineering, BTech Communication Design, BTech Banking Technology and Finance, BTech Interior Design, BTech Artificial Intelligence, and BSc. Mechatronics and MSc Accounting Information Systems,” he noted.
‘’In spite of the much progress we are churning, the university is still saddled with some challenges that are slowing down the pace of its progress. It is therefore apt that on occasion like this, these challenges are brought to the attention of the university’s stakeholders. First among the challenges we face is insufficient staff to run the university. The average staff-student ratio of the university now stands at 1:41 across all faculties against the GTEC norm of 1:18 in some programmes such as engineering. the result is that the effectiveness of staff/students interactions is adversely affected which in turn affects the quality of graduates churned out by the university. I am aware that, the government has put a freeze on employment for the year 2023. However, we implore the government to grant us leave to recruit to replace retired and separated staff of the University,” Ing. Prof. Osei-Wusu indicated.
Ing. Prof Wusu Achaw encouraged the graduates to be good ambassadors of the University wherever they find themselves.
Awards were presented to the best-graduating students of the various faculties of the institution.
