Kumasi — A total of 1,248 students have graduated from the AkentenAppiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED).
This is made up of 155 graduands who pursued postgraduate programmes, and 1,093 graduands who also pursued various undergraduate programmes.
It is the first graduation ceremony of the University since becoming autonomous in 2020.
The graduation ceremony was preceded by the investiture of Prof. Frederick Kwaku Sarfo, as the first Vice Chancellor of the AAMUSTED.
It was graced by the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the clergy, academia (local and international), Ministers of State, traditional leaders among the lots.
The College of Technology Education, Kumasi and the College of Agriculture Education, Asante Mampong of the University of Education, Winneba(UEW), were carved out of UEW to become the AAMUSTED, the premier Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) and Entrepreneurial Development Teacher Education University in Ghana.
The Act establishing AAMUSTED (ACT 1026) was passed in August, 2020.
And, in November, 2020, the Governing Council was inaugurated by Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the then Minister of Education on behalf of the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
In an effort to position the University strategically to achieve its mandate and to promote the government's TVET, Entrepreneurship, and Industrialisation Transformation Agenda, Prof. Sarfo said management of AAMUSTED had embarked on a national and internal university-based Comprehensive Needs Assessment (CNA) to inform their decisions and actions towards the execution of the University's mandate to meet the needs of society.
He said all legal documents of the university's lands had been acquired and a master plan developed for future and effective use of the land resource, adding that a number of strategic policy documents to guide the operations of the university had also been developed, and a fund-raising exercise to support teaching, learning, research and development activities of the university being embarked on.
Currently, the university, he said, had developed 78 new programmes related to TVET, ATVET and Entrepreneurial Education in consultation with major stakeholders more importantly the industries.
Fifteen of the programmes, he said, were fully accredited and the rest at various stages in the accreditation processes.
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According to the Vice Chancellor, the university had recorded consistent increases in its student numbers since becoming autonomous in 2020.
"Before the autonomy, our student population was 17,639. As I speak, the number has risen over the few years to 26,576. It is important to note that our students pay an average tuition fee of GH¢1,500 a year. This is inadequate for the training of TVET student teachers. But we have difficulty in increasing these fees without parliamentary approval," he mentioned.
He called for more students' residential accommodation, lecture halls, workshops and laboratories with modern tools and equipment to cope with the increasing number of students.
"With our student population of 26,576, our staff - student ratio stands at 1:118, a figure obviously above reasonable level, and to say that AAMUSTED faces a dire staff deficit challenge is to put it mildly," he underscored.
"Our situation is far worse when we compare ourselves to sister universities. Under the circumstance, management with the support of the Governing Council has managed to appoint some 210 people on casual and part-time basis across the different staff categories of the university. And because we are paying them with university resources, there is untold pressure on our scarce internally generated funds," he lamented.
