Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister of Education at the weekend, praised the transformative growth and development of the Sunyani Technical University (STU) and promised government’s support to make the university a world class institution.
He said he was impressed about the 20 percent discount the institution had offered female students pursuing Engineering programmes.“With your limited resources the university has performed creditably, and we assure to provide the necessary resources for the university to become the best in Ghana, Africa and the world” and to churn out the quality human resource base required to advance the fourth revolution, the education minister stated.
Addressing the 16th congregation of the university which saw the passing out 1,863 graduands in Sunyani, Dr Adutwum, also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bosomtwe in the Ashanti region, commended the university authorities and asked them to continue that trajectory of building a world-class technical university.
The graduates comprising 1,090, representing 58.5 percent males and 773 representing 41.5 percent females were awarded Bachelor of Technology (B-Tech), Higher National Diploma (HND) and Diploma Certificates in Engineering, TVET, Applied Science and Technology, Built Environment and Applied Arts, as well as Business and Management Studies disciplines.
Dr Adutuwm noted that with the fourth revolution, innovations were changing the world rapidly, saying about 40 percent of jobs would disappear by the next 10 years.
That is why the government is committed and doing everything possible to strengthen Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education to meet global demands and standards.
While commending the Vice President Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia for leading the nation’s digitization agenda, Dr Adutwum said the STEM had a huge prospect for the nation and to tackling the teeming youth unemployment situation and called on the Technical University to remain at the forefront on the digitization agenda.
In a breakdown, Engineer Professor Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah, the Vice Chancellor of the STU, said 259 (13.9 percent) of the graduates obtained First Class, 1,059 (56.8 percent), Second Class as well as 527 (28.3 percent), Upper Division and Second-Class Lower Division, and 18 (1.0 percent), Pass.
Engineering, Science and Technology, TVET and Applied Arts programmes recorded a total of 1,428 (76.7 percent) of the total graduates, compared to 435 (23.3 percent) for Business and Management Studies.
Prof Adinkrah-Appiah said the University had chalked some successes, saying total staff population of the institution, which stood at 746 (629 Full-Time and 117 Part-Time) in 2023, currently stands at 890 (719 Fulltime and 171 Part-Time), with student population soaring from 7,100 to 7,775, an increase of over 9.0 percent.
However, the faculty strength of the University which stood at 269 in 2023, has currently fallen to 249, he added.
The Vice Chancellor said the current Faculty strength implied that the average Faculty/Student Ratio of the University stands at 1:32, saying the ratio was even worse in some faculties, such as Engineering, where it has become difficult to find and recruit qualified Lecturers.
Also, from the staff statistics, the number of part-time staff has increased from 117 in 2023 to 171 in 2024, an increase of 54 saying the faculty strength had changed from 269 to 249, a reduction of 20.
This is a result of staff attrition due to retirement and resignations of staff from the University coupled with the difficulty in obtaining financial clearance from the Government for replacement.
Prof Adinkrah-Appiah said the management of the university therefore, had no option than to replace some of the exited staff with part-time staff to ensure continuity of teaching and learning in the University, putting a lot of pressure on the limited IGF of the Institution.
“We are aware Government has recently released some financial clearance to all Universities in the country, the figures are, however, woefully inadequate to replace the exited Staff at STU”, he stated, and therefore appealed to the education ministry to facilitate approval of more financial clearance to the STU to recruit more staff to replace those who had exited.
GNA
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Caption: Pictures show Dr Adutwum addressing the congregation
