The Bolgatanga Technical University in the Upper East Region has officially started post-graduate programmes with the admission of the first post-graduate students for the 2023/2024 academic year.
According to the board and management of the school, 50 students were given admission to pursue Masters in various fields but a total of 36 students comprising 27 males and nine females had reported and registered.
They are to pursue Masters in Procurement, Logistics and Supply Chain Management and Masters in Ecological Agriculture programmes.
Professor Samuel Erasmus Alnaa, the Vice Chancellor of the University, who made this disclosure at the 22nd matriculation of the school, indicated it was a milestone for a greater journey, to consolidate the vision of the University to run cutting-edge programmes to contribute to sustainable national development.
“We will progressively introduce post-graduate programmes in all the departments as and when such departments are ready. In furtherance of this, we will soon start preparing the grounds to introduce Doctor of Philosophy programmes starting with School of Agriculture,” he said.
The Vice Chancellor noted that the vision of management was to ensure that the University was the most preferred tertiary institution nationally and globally for “one-stop academic programmes and progression”.
“This will also afford our various faculties the opportunities to have more hands to conduct research works, innovations and inventions for their career development, so I urge all and sundry to take advantage of this,” he said.
The Vice Chancellor explained that because of the strategies put in place, the University was developing at a fast pace, however, it had been constrained with lecture halls and the situation was impeding smooth academic work.
He said although management had been working within their capacity to improvise for students to have lectures comfortably, the situation needed urgent attention from government.
“We also urge government to quickly move in to construct lecture halls for the University, this request has been on the drawing board since 2017 and still this great important project is yet to see the light of day, it is very unfortunate that this project is still not given any financial allocation to have it constructed” he added.
Professor Alnaa further appealed to the government to grant the University financial clearance to recruit qualified lecturers, adding that the current number of staff was not enough and that put pressure on the school to use its small internally generated funds to recruit part-time lecturers which was unsustainable.
While urging the students to take advantage of the abundance of learning resources in the University to build themselves to become solution-oriented graduates when they complete, he warned staff and students against any misconduct that would put the name of the University into disrepute and truncate their academic career.
The University admitted a total of 1,371 students representing 13 per cent increase over the last academic year’s admission, however, 1005 comprising 580 males and 425 females had reported representing 19 per cent increase over the last year’s number.
GNA
HT/KOA/AD
22 Feb 2024
