The Principal of the Navrongo Campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor Albert Luguterah, has hinted that plans are being initiated to introduce innovative and demand driven academic programmes once the campus is officially declared an autonomous university.
He explained that the science-based University would focus and add more technology driven courses including medical and engineering sciences to equip students with the requisite skills and knowledge towards national development and transformation.
Professor Luguterah dropped the hint on Saturday in Navrongo in the Upper East Region at the matriculation ceremony for undergraduate and postgraduate students admitted to study in the Navrongo Campus of the University.
It would be recalled that last year, President Nana Akufo-Addo announced that the Navrongo and Wa Campuses of the UDS would be made autonomous universities, following that, Parliament in July 2019, passed the Bill.
It is awaiting presidential assent for the conversion of the two campuses into autonomous universities and would be renamed the University of Technology and Applied Sciences (UTAS) and the University of Business and Integrated Development.
Prof. Luguterah stated that “when the Navrongo campus becomes a fully fledged university and equipped with the necessary human and capital infrastructure, it will help create more opportunities for expansion, growth for stronger partnerships with other organisations and sister universities to help contribute to national development.
“Despite the challenges that confronts the university, it remains one of the universities where ground breaking researches are done and the campus is one of the best that offer Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Mathematical and Applied Sciences.
“The conversion of the campus into an autonomous university will further help to solve bureaucratic administrative challenges and speed up decision making processes of the university,” Prof. Luguterah assured.
In a speech read on his behalf, Professor Gabriel Ayum Teye, the Vice-Chancellor of the UDS warned staff of the University to desist from exchanging grades for sex since the University had a strong policy that did not condone sexual harassment and encouraged students who are sexually harassed to report to the authorities for redress.
Out of the total number of 19,193 applicants, the University admitted 9,476, comprising 9,232 undergraduate students and 254 postgraduate students to pursue various programmes in all its campuses namely Nyankpala in the Northern Region, Navrongo in the Upper East Region and Wa in the Upper West Region for the 2019/2020 academic year.
FROM SAMUEL AKAPULE, NAVRONGO
