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2019 CONGREGATION: School of Graduate Studies

 

The students, comprises 18 Master of Philosophy in Leadership students, 632 Master of Business Administration students with various areas of specialization and 7 Master of Science in Leadership students.

 

 

Addressing the fourth session of the 11th Congregation of the University on Saturday, July 27, 2019, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Abednego Feehi Okoe Amartey expressed his profound gratitude to the graduands for choosing UPSA for their postgraduate programmes. He said the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) after its establishment in 2009, has lived up to its mantra of promoting the development and delivery of postgraduate programmes that meet the corporate and institutional needs of society.

 

As a result, he says the school has gained the reputation of being the hub for training postgraduate students in the acquisition of specialized skills in mainly management and accounting disciplines.

Prof Amartey, speaking on infrastructural development on campus, revealed that the Ministry of Finance has given the University the green light to begin the construction of a two ten-storey multipurpose edifice which will have new lecture halls, lecturers’ office, meeting and reading rooms as well as commercial areas and penthouses.

 

He further hinted that plans are far advanced for the commencement of the construction of two new student’s hostel blocks: One, he explained, would be a ten-storey building to be developed on the land adjoining the existing students’ Hostel; while the second Hostel would be developed on a newly acquired 12 plot of land behind the Ideal College near campus.

Turning to the graduands, the Vice-Chancellor urged them to develop their minds as it is the surest way of addressing the challenges confronting our society.

 

“Please do not forget to continue to develop your minds. Today does not end your mental development. Remember that the greatest talent God gave us is the brain. The problems of our society can be solved by developed minds,” he said.

 

Prof Okoe Amartey, in further admonishment also said: “those of you getting into new jobs, I have a [piece of] fine advice for you. Allow yourselves to be mentored by experienced people.  When it comes to your jobs, learn the job before you learn the tricks of the job. If you learn the tricks too early, you become another type of person completely different from the authentic UPSA Professional.”

 

He continued “the world out there has its attractions, temptations, virtues and vices. Keep a sane head in adversity, and fair judgement in your dealings with others. Make your time here count in all that you do. Don’t let UPSA, your family and the nation down by failing to demonstrate a high sense of hard work, integrity and discipline,” he emphasized.

 

The Minister-in-charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah, who doubled as the guest speaker, lauded UPSA for its free vacation classes initiative for SHS students living within the University’s catchment areas. He says the community action programme by the University is commendable and called on other tertiary institutions to follow suit.

The minister also commended the University council, academic board and other unionized associations for their voluntary financial commitments towards the Vice-Chancellor Endowment Fund (VCEF), a fund set aside to help indigent students to fund their education at the University.

 

Prof. Yankah also seized the opportunity to explain that the soon-to-be-introduced tertiary education policy was part of government’s reform of the educational sector in Ghana.

 

He said: “for the first time in recent history, Ghana now has a tertiary education policy document which encapsulates cardinal policy of government on tertiary education- from admissions through graduations, funding, graduate studies…[etc]. It is also in this document that the centralized application system will be applied.”

 

This he said is intended to remove all admission bottlenecks at the tertiary level and not to compromise the quality of student enrollment as feared by a section of the academia.

Meanwhile, Nana Ama Buadiba Osei, an MBA in Total Quality Management student, emerged the overall best student of the School of Graduate Studies.

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