By Nicholas Osei-Wusu.
The Minister for Education, Dr. Osei Yaw Adutwum, has disclosed that a strategic plan to make the Bosomtwe District in the Ashanti region a model for critical manpower base for national development has been activated with plans to sponsor 70 Senior High School graduates to pursue engineering and science-based programmes at the University next academic year.
According to him, 30 of such students enrolled last academic year are taking similar programmes at the University of Mines and Technology, UMaT at Tarkwa at the total cost being borne from his personal resources.
Dr. Adu Twum, who is also MP for Bosomtwe Constituency, made this known in Kumasi at the graduation ceremony of the Christian Service University College.
The occasion was the 45th Graduation ceremony of the Christian Service University College, CSUC during which 479 students graduated.
They received Bachelor, MSC, MA and certificates Communication Studies, Business Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation, Christian Ministry with Management, Computer Science among others after going through between one and four years of study.
The event was under the theme: “The Future of Tertiary Education in Ghana; The Place of Private Universities.” The President of the CSUC, Professor Samuel Afrane, said despite the myriad of challenges confronting the University, the future is bright. He expressed the hope that the Ministry of Education would give favourable consideration to the many issues submitted by the umbrella body of Private Universities for Government’s attention.
The Minister for Education, Dr. Osei Yaw Adutwum said Ghana cannot continue to over-rely on grammar-based and humanity academic courses at the various educational levels.
The way to go in propelling Ghana’s socio-economic development to fully meet challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution revolving around creativity, innovation and critical thinking is to create a pool of quality human resources in the fields of engineering, technology, science and mathematics. This is why he is personally sponsoring 30 students at the UMaT since last year, budgeted to sponsor 70 more this academic year with another plan to support 20 others to pursue medicine at the various Universities.