The Sunyani Technical University (STU) has admitted 3,362 fresh students to pursue various diploma and degree programmes for the 2023/2024 academic year.
According to Professor Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah, the Vice Chancellor (VC), the university issued admission letters to a total of 5,704 prospective students.
Freshers for the academic year showed an increase of 14.0 percent over last year’s figure of 2,949 students.
Addressing the 28th matriculation ceremony of the university at its main campus in Sunyani on Friday, the VC said 2,252 of the fresh students, representing 67.0 percent were male whilst 1,110 representing 33 percent were females.
In terms of disciplines, 2,833, representing 84.3 percent enrolled on science, technology, engineering and TVET-based programmes as against 529, constituting 15.7 percent for Business and Administration.
That, Prof Adinkrah-Appiah explained, was in line with the university’s mandate as a Technical University and attributed the significant rise in the student enrolment for the academic year to several factors, including the good performance of students in the world of work, as well as advertisements.
He said the introduction of new Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes was another key factor that had contributed to the increase in student enrolment, saying the university was undertaking a more intensive enrolment drive to continuously improve its annual enrolment into new and existing academic programmes.
“When patronage of such industry-driven programmes is improved, it would help produce more skilled graduates who can readily find employment or set up their businesses to reduce the existing high spate of youth unemployment facing our country in recent times,” Prof Adinkrah-Appiah stated.
The university currently runs the following programmes under GTEC accreditation: nine Master of Technology (MTech), 26 Bachelor’s programmes (BTech. and BSc. Programmes), 23 Higher National Diploma (HND), five Diploma and eight other non-tertiary programmes.
Prof Adinkrah-Appiah said all was set for the university to start apprenticeship programmes under Phase IV of the Ghana TVET Voucher Project (GTVP) under the auspices of KFW, indicating that 100 Mastercraft Persons (MCPs) from various Trade Associations had already been registered to commence the training as an initial step for training of all Apprentices under these MCPs.
He urged all prospective students, both local and foreign, to take advantage of enrolling on these innovative and industry-driven programmes to acquire the requisite knowledge and technical and professional skills that would make them readily employable to avoid the “temptation of joining the so-called Unemployed Graduates Association in Ghana after going through some other programmes which are more susceptible to joblessness.”
The University is also making efforts to introduce several tailor-made micro-credentialled Programmes (Short Courses) for industry practitioners within and around the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions, which would eventually lead to full degree certifications.
“Establishments such as Newmont Ghana Gold-Ahafo Mine, VRA, and the Ghana Water Company within the three regions are informed to take advantage of these programmes at the Sunyani Technical University to provide life-long learning opportunities for their esteemed staff,” Prof Adinkrah-Appiah said.
