The University of Ghana has organized the 2016 graduation ceremony to crown the academic toils of students who have successfully completed their programme of study for the 2016/2017 academic year.
This ceremony was the maiden edition under the 12th Vice Chancellor of the nation’s premier university, Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu.
It is customary for the Vice Chancellor to present a report to congregation over developments in the University over the last academic year.
In his report, Professor Oduro Owusu touched on several issues including admissions, appointment, Students Financial aid, Global trends in education and world rankings and physical infrastructure.
Below is the Full Speech of Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu at the 2016 Congregation.
VICE CHANCELLOR’S ADDRESS TO CONGREGATION NOVEMBER, 2016
Chairman of the University Council
Members of the University Council
Pro-Vice Chancellors
Registrar
Officials of sister universities
Your Excellencies – Members of the Diplomatic Corp
Niimei, Naamei, Nananom
Members of Convocation
Graduating Students
Parents and Guardians
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
Introduction
It is my privilege and honour to welcome you all to today’s Congregation Ceremony one of the sessions in my first series of congregation ceremonies since I assumed office as the Vice Chancellor of this great University.
Congregation is a very important occasion in the life of a University. It is a time to recognise the academic progress of the graduands and to publicly acknowledge their achievements. It is also an occasion to review the work of the University during the last academic year in line with its stated vision and to inform stakeholders about the true state of the University and the way forward. Today’s ceremony focuses on the second batch of students who completed their programmes of study in the 2015/2016 academic year; the first batch having graduated in July 2016. It is my fervent hope that all of us here present will help in making the ceremony a memorable one.
Acknowledgement
I assumed office as the 12th Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana on 1st August 2016 to provide leadership and an enabling environment for the realization of the University’s vision of “becoming a world class research intensive ’go to” university over the next decade’’.
I would therefore like to acknowledge the immense contribution of all my predecessors and hardworking employees of the university (past and present) for the visibility and respect the University of Ghana currently enjoys on both the local and international scene. By dint of their collective vision and foresight over the past 68 years, our university is today ranked as one of the best Universities in Africa. Consequently, Mr Chairman, I am glad to inform you that, The University of Ghana has been chosen to host the next (16th) conference of the International Association of Universities, together with the Association of African Universities.
Vision
At my induction, I outlined my vision for making the University of Ghana a first choice establishment in the circle of academic institutions in Africa and beyond.
I spoke among other things about my commitment to position the University of Ghana as a world class “Go to University’’; I identified key actions that I intend to roll out during my tenure to make this vision a reality. These include: my passion to tailor the teaching and research in the University to the needs of our stakeholders; review the curricula to ensure that students educated at this institution are equipped with the skill-set needed to adapt quickly to the demands of the job market; promote learning, research and scholarship by providing the needed enabling environment to maximize achievement and excellence.
The others are to make our surroundings and environment green; improve upon our global and Africa-wide rankings by aligning budgets to support effective implementation of actions that would promote the core business of the university; promote positive attitudinal change and character-molding as the underlying theme of all our engagements; and to subject our institution to external review.
Chairman of Council, ladies and gentlemen, Currently, management is trying to redouble efforts to diversify funding sources, manage our financial resources judiciously and have a prudent debt utilization and management system aimed at making the University financially viable over the next five years through engagements with government, the private sector, industry leaders, and donor partners.
I am happy to report that the vision to position the University of Ghana as a “Go to University’’ has started in earnest. Management has set up Strategic Teams with the responsibility to come up with strategies that would advance this vision. The teams which were inaugurated on 3rd November, 2016 are;
The teams are made up of highly qualified members and I am confident that they will come up with the roadmap for the realization of our “Go to University’’ vision. It is our expectation that all members of Convocation, staff, students and other key stakeholders will give the teams all the necessary support to make their work fruitful.
New Appointments
The tenure of the University Council, under the able chairmanship of Professor Justice Samuel Date-Bah, came to an end on 31st July, 2016. I would like on behalf of management, staff and students to extend my sincere gratitude to members of the former Council for their sacrifice and tireless contributions to the development of the University. I would also wish to welcome the new Council under the Chairmanship of Professor Kwamena Ahwoi. I take this opportunity to assure the new Council of our unflinching support in defining and steering the strategic direction of this University.
Some senior administrative appointments also took effect from 1st August 2016. New Provosts, Deans, Directors and Heads of Departments, have been appointed to provide academic and administrative leadership in the various units of this university. I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude and thanks to all Heads, Deans and Directors whose tenure came to an end in July 2016. Your services to this university are well noted and I hope we can fall on you to take up other assignments in the future. I would also like to thank the new Provosts, Deans, Directors and Heads for their willingness to serve. I trust you will share in the University’s new transformational agenda built on the pillars of the 2Rs i.e., Respect and “RINER” which stands for Relevance, Innovation, Excellence and Resource Mobilisation.
It is my fervent hope that all the new appointees will bring their varied experiences and skills acquired in University administration over the years to advance the vision of this great university.
Admissions
For the sixth year running, the University created the platform for Ghanaian and other applicants in the West African sub-region who completed their WASSCE in May to enter the University in the same year. I salute the teams who worked hard to make this a reality.
At the beginning of the 2016/2017 academic year, for the main campus, Accra City campus Korle-Bu campus and Distance Education programmes, the University offered admission to a total of 24,312 applicants made up of 20,621 undergraduate students and 3,691 graduate students. At the undergraduate level 3,841 or 50.47% of the registered students are male while 3,770 or 49.53% are females. At the graduate level, 1,702 or 57.89% of the registered students were males while 1,238 or 42.11% were females. The figure shows that the University has made significant progress in reducing the gap in access to higher education between the genders. We are therefore close to achieving the national objective of 50:50 male – female ratio in tertiary admissions. Further admissions will be made during the course of the year for Special programmes and Sandwich programmes.
The University continues to increase access through its policy of offering the opportunity of university education to applicants from Less Endowed Schools and applicants with disability. The admission of sports men and sports women through the UG Policy for the Admission of Athlete Students(PAAS) policy is also in its third year and already bearing fruit.
In June-July 2016, Team UG participated and performed excellently at the Federation of African Universities Sports (FASU) Games in South Africa. The team competed in five out of the nine disciplines and won 4 Gold medals, 7 Silver medals and 5 bronze medals to place 7th out of 35 universities. We are extremely proud of Desmond Aryee, who was ranked the 4th best performer in athletics by the competition organizers, after running an impressive personal best 10.40 seconds to take the men’s 100m final in the track and field championships. It has been reported that more than half of the medals were won by athletes we admitted through the UG-PAAS. There is therefore no doubt that our strategy to use this means to enhance our performance at various national and international events is working and we need to continue firming up these achievements by investing in our sporting infrastructure.
At Legon, we place high premium on the cross-cultural experience that is made possible by the presence of international students on our campuses. We are happy to report that for this academic year, 761 undergraduate and 229 graduate international students of various nationalities were admitted into our programmes.
Undergraduate Studies
Mr. Chairman, in the 2010/2011 academic year, a new four-year degree programme was implemented with the introduction of new courses and programmes and revision of existing ones. The grading system was also overhauled and the thresholds raised with the aim of improving the quality of graduates from the University of Ghana.
We are in the seventh academic year since the implementation of this restructured degree programme and today’s graduating undergraduate class is part of the fourth cohort of students under the revised programme. The University will review the programme and provide recommendations to make our graduates and programmes more relevant to national development.
This academic year also saw the offer of new programmes. It includes the re-introduction of the Bachelor of Arts in Administration programme in the College of Humanities to offer students the opportunity to combine business related subjects with other subjects in the Humanities.
The College of Education has also rolled out new programmes. These are the Bachelor of Arts in Education and Bachelor of Science in Education to offer more choices to our undergraduate students.
Graduate Studies
Mr. Chairman the new four (4) year Ph.D. programmes which commenced in the 2012/13 academic year are also on course. The adoption of the 4-year research programme is in line with the University’s vision of becoming a world class research-intensive institution. Most departments have revised their doctoral programmes and are also developing new ones to meet the exigencies of the times. We look forward to graduating the first cohort in 2017.
The University has also developed the following new Masters programmes which have received accreditation from the National Accreditation Board:
Students’ Financial Aid and Scholarship
Mr. Chairman, I am happy to announce that the Students Financial Aid office which was established in 2005 has contributed immensely to providing access to university education to many bright but needy students. An average of 120 students are sponsored each year through the benevolence of some corporate bodies, churches, NGOs, individuals and alumni. To date 2,596 students have benefited from the fund. On behalf of the management of the University I wish to thank all our benefactors for their kind gestures and their services to humanity. I would like to encourage all who wish to support these students to come forward, to help us to put a smile on the face of a student in need, bring hope to a family and support capacity building for our nation’s development.
Let me make special mention of the aid initiated by the students themselves. This is Yibiboa under which a percentage of SRC dues paid by all students is assigned to support the Students Financial Aid initiative.
Careers and Counseling Services
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, enhancing the educational experience of our students outside the formal setting is one of our cardinal outputs. Our Counseling and Placement Centre, which has been renamed Careers and Counseling Centre, offers us the opportunity to achieve this objective. The name change is to reflect how the services of the Centre have significantly evolved to embrace new requirements in the world of work.
The Centre’s strategic goals which are in tandem with the University’s strategic priorities, includes working with recruitment experts to identify students with leadership potential. It also provides opportunities for experiential learning for our students and makes counseling support easily accessible for employees and students. We believe the centre is well placed to achieve its set objectives.
Research and Staff Development
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, the University recognizes its human capital as its primary asset. It therefore continues to develop strategies to enhance its capabilities. The University continues to experience growth in its research portfolio with funding from both internal and external sources and a general push to enhance research governance and management structures, to facilitate cutting-edge research and dissemination.
The University is keen to support its faculty members by raising the profile of research and thus has increased the amount of funding available to faculty members for research. Since 2008, the university has through its own internally generated funds (IGF), provided about 5 Million Cedis to 182 faculty members to undertake various research projects. Some of these projects have also leveraged additional external support for bigger projects. In the year under review an amount of GH₵ 901,526 was awarded as research grants to faculty members. Again through IGF, an amount of USD 123,582 was provided as conference support to faculty members in the year under review. As you may be aware the University, in 2008, set its self the target to support faculty development to ensure that all teaching faculty acquire PhDs or terminal degrees by 2018. Each year the university provides some funding support to faculty members enrolled on PhD programmes as part of this scheme. To date, 93 faculty members have benefited from the scheme which has helped to chalk a 98% success rate before the end date.
The University will now focus on post-doctoral fellowships to provide the necessary capabilities to its faculty. The Colleges are also developing continuous development programmes for staff.
Based on the success of these initiatives, Legon has received tremendous support from its donor partners, notably the Carnegie Corporation of New York which in October this year, provided its third grant to the university since 2010 to implement the Building a New Generation of Academics in Africa (BANGA-Africa) Project. The project is a follow-up to the UG Next Generation of Academics in Africa (UG-NGAA) Project aimed at helping to build a critical mass of a new generation of academics in UG. All these initiatives are to enable Legon develop a critical mass of faculty to achieve its research-intensive academic outlook.
We have also won a grant for the Building Stronger Universities (BSU II) project, which is funded by DANIDA. The overall objective of the project is to enhance the capacity of the University of Ghana to achieve its objective of transformation into a first-class research University. To achieve this laudable objective the university will, through the project, strengthen its capability to deliver high quality research PhD education and training; strengthen newly established Centres of Research Excellence and improve research administration processes, support and training.
All these initiatives continue to contribute to the University of Ghana’s effort to reach a threshold where a critical mass to faculty are well equipped to help the university achieve its research-intensive outlook and also raise its research profile.
Infrastructural Developments
Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, as you drive through the Okponglo entrance to our beautiful campus, you will notice that the road has been named ‘‘Academic Freedom’’ road; very soon, the arch which is under construction will be completed to create the – ‘‘Academic Freedom Arch’’. Let me emphasize that the arch is to serve purely as a security post and not as a toll booth !
Our physically enabling environment is being developed block by block to ensure that our students and employees live in a decent and sanitized environment. To this end, Mr. Chairman, I am happy to inform you that the Green project which is expected to turn campus green and ensure efficient waste management system, has begun in earnest.
Work on physical infrastructural projects started by the previous Vice-Chancellor are on-going and have reached various stages of the construction process.
We recently cut the sod for a construction of the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) at the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (BCMB), College of Basic and Applied Sciences, (CBAS). All these facilities when completed will add to our stock of physical infrastructure to enhance the delivery of our academic programmes.
Global Trends in Education and World Rankings
Globalisation is here to stay and education can and should play a role in changing the behaviours, attitudes and expectations that make a difference. Education as a powerful tool for reducing inequity and its role of providing skills and competencies needed to operate in this new world cannot be over emphasized. The new Global Education Monitoring Report by UNESCO shows the potential for education to propel progress towards all global imperatives outlined in the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It has also been reported that education needs a major transformation in order to fulfil that potential and meet the current challenges facing humanity and the planet. We are very much aware that some major transformations should take place in order for us to achieve this potential and meet the current challenges. Our University is therefore working hard to place its self at the forefront of this role expected to be played by the education sector.
World university rankings are very important to our work at the University of Ghana’s. As has been reported, it is from these rankings that the viability of our working processes get interrogated, potential donors secured, best crop of students won over and collaborations for major research work forged.
The 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) World Rankings once again placed the University of Ghana ahead of its peers in Ghana and West Africa. It is my pleasure to inform you, Mr. Chairman that the University of Ghana was ranked in the 5th decile of this year’s ranking; and our strongest pillar this year was research. This is definitely a great achievement, given that we were ranked in the 4th decile in 2015, with our strongest pillar that year being international outlook with a rank in the 5th decile. It is worthy of note that our efforts at becoming a world class research intensive University is well on its way.
We are currently the highest ranked University in West Africa and the 7th in Africa. This enviable feat could not have been achieved without the concerted effort of all colleagues, students and stakeholders of the University. I am most grateful and confident that with the establishment of our Strategic Teams and continued support of all of us, our rankings will soar higher at both the continental and the international level.
Security
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I can report that security on campus has witnessed tremendous improvement. The University has also recently put together a strategic document to combat security challenges on our campus. A major constraint however has been the fact that the security office is greatly understaffed. Management of the University is however working assiduously to find avenues to improve the current staffing situation. We have also organized face-to-face discussions to educate students on the need to be security conscious. The goal is to create individual and ultimately a holistic awareness of the necessity to be security conscious on campus. Let me take this opportunity to thank the Regional and District police command as well as national security for beefing up our security efforts, volunteering security briefs, and helping maintain law and order on campus.
Graduands
Mr. Chairman, this address will not be complete without acknowledging parents and guardians, some of whom are here today to witness this milestone achievement in the lives of our graduands. It is your love, sacrifice and dedication which has brought these graduands thus far and I salute you. I also entreat you to continue to nurture them in the next phase of their life’s journey. It is my fervent prayer that you will enjoy the fruits of your labour in the coming years.
Now, graduands, today marks the beginning of another major milestone in your life’s journey. Today, most of you are taking your first step into the career world and the knowledge you have acquired in this University will hopefully guide you to make the right choices.
The recent World Economic Forum held in June 2016 identified ten most critical skills needed for the job market in 2020. These are complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, people management and co-ordinating with others. The rest are emotional intelligence, judgement and decision making, service orientation, negotiation and cognitive flexibility. I believe you have developed some of these skills through the academic programme and the University of Ghana Required Courses (UGRCs) offered. You should also understand that education is expected to continue beyond the walls of the lecture hall into the community and the work place and into adulthood.
As you enter the job market, I urge you to continue to improve upon these critical skills. Remember that it is a competitive world and to be in the lead, you need to always strive to make a difference; just a one degree shift from the norm and you will be in the lead.
As our fresh alumni let me encourage you to contribute to your alma mater. The University of Ghana will be 70 years in August 2018 and we believe we can count on your support to make Legon proud. To commemorate the 50th Anniversary, Jubilee Hall was constructed as a birthday present from the Alumni to the University. To make this happen the alumni contributed 1% of their salary for three years towards the project. We are anxiously waiting for the 2018 birthday present for which your contribution will be most appreciated.
Once again, we congratulate you on your achievements, and I thank you for your attention.
By: Radio Univers 105.7 FM
Share this:
Related
“We’ll Construct An Arch On Okponglo-Legon Road But…” Legon VC
Intuit QuickBooks Desktop Pro 2016 Installer Torrent Download
Share this:
Related
You Might Also Like
Leave a Comment
Radio Univers 105.7MHz
University of Ghana Management Vows to Deal with Miscreants Involved in Matriculation Clashes
Taxi Explodes at UG; Timely Intervention of Fire Service Quells Burning Car
Build Up Yourself Physically To Fight Crime – UG Head of Security Tells Students
- MA in Educational Leadership and Management
- in Geo-Information Science
- Institutional Advancement Team
- Agriculture Centres Commercialisation Committee
- University of Ghana Rebranding and Marketing Team
- Medical and Dental School Expansion Team
- University of Ghana Regional / World Ranking Team
- Vice -Chancellor’s Green Team
- Independent Power Supply Team
- Laboratory Modernization Team
Was This Post Helpful: PREVIOUS POSTNEXT POST – on November 24, 2016– on November 24, 2016– on November 23, 2016
