Professor Kwasi Obiri-Danso, Vice-Chancellor, has announced the establishment of Short Courses Unit under the Office of the Vice-Chancellor to strategically provide access to good quality higher education to majority of Ghanaians. The announcement was made in his maiden state of the University Address to Members of Convocation. The event saw a very good attendance of teaching and non-teaching staff of the University.
Professor Obiri-Danso indicated that more than one hundred concept papers of short courses have been developed by a team led by Mr. Yaw Amo Sarpong of the Bureau of Integrated Rural Development (BIRD). He stated that the Short Courses Team has successfully run 15 tailor-made courses for the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Ghana Health Service, District Assemblies, GNPC, the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) among others.
He further stated that the University has signed seven (7) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and agreement with five (5) Universities in the United States of America, two (2) from the European Union and some local institutions to facilitate the development and delivery of the short courses.
On female enrolment in the sciences, he said due to the affirmative action taken by the Vice-Chancellor to increase the number of females in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses in the University in fulfillment of the University’s strategic plan, female enrolment has increased from 30% to 36% currently. Professor Obiri-Danso continued that the Ghana National Petroleum Council (GNPC) in supporting the initiative has provided KNUST with 235 scholarships to female students studying STEM related programmes. The scholarship covers tuition, accommodation and monthly stipend. So far, the University has received two million four hundred and thirty-six cedis (GH₵2,436,000) into its account for the purpose.
Also on Initiatives focused on students, he said management has ensured the proscription of holding lectures before the official hour of 8 a.m. and a ban on sale of lecture notes and materials to students.
On security, he stated that, the Security Services is currently housed in a modern edifice with state of the art logistics. Coupled with this is the construction of access controlled facilities at the various entry/exit points in the University.
The research output of the University has also gone up by 26% with 1,501 publications in refereed journals, 184 in conference papers, 4 book chapters. A report by Elsevier indicated that KNUST has 2,464 scholarly publications with 25,411 total citations with 10.3 citations per publication. This, according to the Vice-Chancellor is encouraging and called for more of such feat from Members of Convocation.
In conclusion, the Vice-Chancellor thanked Members of Convocation for their contribution in making great strides and called for the support of all in the coming year to build a University of choice for the entire continent.
Mr. Reuben K. A. Glover, Chairman of Council of Convocation, called on his colleagues to join hands with management to further advance the development of the University.
