The Deputy Minister of Education in-charge of Technical Education, Professor(Prof) Kwesi Yankah has advised managers of technical universities to guide against the temptation to grow their institutions to the neglect of their mandate.
He was speaking at the 16th congregation of the Koforidua Technical University (KTU) and the investiture of Prof David Kofi Essumang as the first Vice Chancellor of the university.
Prof Yankah called on Technical Universities to put in place responsible executive heads to steer the affairs of the institutions according to their mandate to meet the expectations of society.
He urged the new Vice-Chancellor to be a courageous leader and show the way for the staff of the university to follow.
Prof. David Kofi Essumang advocated that students who did not offer science at the Senior High School(SHS) but had good grades in core science and core mathematics to be allowed to enroll into the science and technical departments at the tertiary level if they were willing.
He argued that statistics available indicated that out of the over 1.2 million students graduating at the SHS, only 11 per cent were offering science.
Prof Essumang argued that if such a proposal was not adopted, there was no way that the technical universities could fulfil their mandate of allocating 60 per cent of the vacancy in their institution for science and technical students and 40 per cent for students reading other subjects.
He advocated for more resources and motivation for more students to offer science at the SHS level for the country to have more students to offer science and technical subjects at the tertiary level.
Prof Essumang said his focus as a Vice Chancellor was to help build a technical university that would produce solid well trained graduates in science and technology that would be ready to pass on their expertise to the next generation.
Dr Kofi Koduah Sarpong, Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) called on KTU to collaborate with industry to develop programmes to produce graduates that would meet the aspirations of industry.
He advised the graduates of the university to be guided by honesty, humility, hardwork, good human relations and being humane in their relationship with others.
Earlier, Prof Samuel Obeng Apori, Chairman of the KTU Council who swore the Vice Chancellor into office advised him to be principled and be guided by the Technical University Act and the statute of KTU.
He advised him against trying to please all as that would make him fail.
Prof Apori advised the new graduates of the university to go out and use what they had left to establish their own businesses.
Later 123 of students who graduated from the university this year and had first class honours in various fields were presented with various awards.
