Professor Abednego Okoe Feehi Amartey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), has inaugurated an eight-member team led by Prof. Goski Alabi, Dean of the Centre for International Education and Collaboration (CIEC) to spearhead the drafting of a strategic plan for the University for the next five years.
The team will be expected to review the University’s previous Strategic Plan, which ends in 2017 and tailor it to suit the vision of the Vice-Chancellor for the University.
According to the Vice-Chancellor, the core areas of his vision for the next five years, include; Teaching and Research; Human Resource Development, Research and Internationalization. These areas, he believes would improve the University’s global ranking. He further intimated that the core areas are also largely influenced by the Accredited Council for Business Schools and Programmes (ACBSP), which UPSA is accredited to.
The ACBSP is a leading specialized accreditation association for business education supporting, celebrating, and rewarding teaching excellence. The association embraces the virtues of teaching excellence and emphasizes to students that it is essential to learn how to learn.
Last year, UPSA received the ACBSP accreditation after a rigorous process of auditing its institutional systems, based on a quality framework. The UPSA is the first University south of the Sahara to receive the prestigious ACBSP accreditation.
Prof. Amartey further mentioned that the Strategic Plan would be drafted at the level of the faculties and directorates. “This is to ensure ownership of the process by all and help with the implementation process,” he said.
Chairperson of the strategic team, Prof. Goski Alabi said all-inclusive strategy will be used to collate ideas for the plan. She mentioned that the involvement of faculties and directorates is the ultimate goal of the plan. “Strategic committees will be formed at the faculty and directorate levels to brainstorm on ideas, the collated ideas will be screened and categorized into the four thematic areas mentioned.” she said.
She also announced that, there would be a three-member Oversight Committee chaired by the Vice- Chancellor, with the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and herself. Prof. Alabi reassured their commitment to draft a solid Strategic Plan, which would be in line with the University’s vision of being globally recognized and regionally entrenched. This she believed would put the University at a high pedestal in the next five years.
The Vice-Chancellor in his closing remarks challenged the team to be open to ideas and involve all the necessary stakeholders both internally and externally in order to execute an excellent job.
The Strategic Plan team consists of the Dean of the Centre for International Education and Collaboration, Prof. Goski Alabi, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of UPSA, Prof. Charles Barnor, Dean of Graduate School, Dr. Kwaku Mensah Mawutor, Director of Administration, Dr. Mrs. Vivian Amoako, Director of Drolor Center for Strategic Leadership, Dr. Samuel Batchison Offei, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed, Director of Research, Mr. Mukaila Abdulai, Coordinator, Affilations (CIEC) and Ms. Ivy Sabah, Secretary to the team.
