The University for Development Studies (UDS) on Saturday, April 27, 2024 held the April 2024 Congregation Ceremony at the Multipurpose Auditorium, Dungu Campus in Tamale 0The ceremony witnessed a massive attendance of enthusiastic graduands from various Schools, Faculties and the Institute for Distance and Continuing Learning, as well as their family members, friends and loved ones.

A total of Two Thousand, Eight Hundred and Ninety-Eight (2, 898) students graduated with various Degrees. The graduands were made up of 1056 undergraduate students representing 36.44% while 1705, representing 58.83% were Diploma students. Eighteen (18) of the postgraduate students received PhD Degrees, with One Hundred and Twelve (112) receiving Masters Degrees whilst the remaining Seven (7) students graduated with Postgraduate Diplomas.

Prof. Seidu Al-Hassan, Vice-Chancellor (VC) of UDS expressed optimism that an accelerated university development will lead to the provision of excellent services to students as well as to the community members within its catchment area.  He said the University has adopted effective strategies to enable staff stay focused and dedicated, which have started yielding the needed results and impact socially, finally, academically environmentally and even politically.

According to Prof. Seidu, Al-hassan, “specifically, the main strategies by the University are student-centeredness, financial discipline, increased allocation of IGF (from 22% to 49%) for infrastructural development, increased private sector participation, quality research manifesting itself in improved academic-industry collaboration, research funding and academic excellence, as well as Staff motivation.

He added, “my management team and I have decided to have yearly themes that will guide staff performance in the coming years. The annual themes are consciously chosen to promote collegiality, efficiency and effective time management”. For the 2023/024 academic year, we settled on “Accelerated University Development Through Proactiveness and Coordination”.

The Vice-Chancellor, gave updates on some of the important strides the university had made since the last Congregation which was held in November, 2023. These included the significant strides the university had made in the global ranking of universities. He indicated that UDS is now ranked as one of the best in Ghana (4th) and in West Africa. On the world stage, UDS moved from a reporter status in 2023 to data status in the 2024 Times Higher Education World Universities Ranking.

The Vice-Chancellor also intimated that, the UDS School of Business conducted a comprehensive review of the 2024 Budget and Economic Policy, adding that this would be a regular feature on the calendar of the school. Other items that featured prominently in the Vice-Chancellor’s address included the completion of the Silver Jubilee Building, on the Nyankpala Campus. He also revealed that the University received some visitors both locally and internationally to foster cooperation and to strengthen the research focus and capacity of staff. He indicated that the West African Centre for Shea, Innovation and Research (WACSIR) was in the process of developing an innovative Shea parkland carbon and biodiversity credit accreditation platform to support smallholder farmers.

On some of the scholarship initiatives, the Vice-Chancellor said, a financial aid scheme to help brilliant but poor and needy students had been established. He announced the that the University had introduced the Vice-Chancellor’s Award Scheme for Dedicated Leadership for Graduating Students and the Vice-Chancellor’s TTFPP Award to recognize students and groups who come up with exceptional research work and implementation of the most innovative ideas to solve problems in their communities.

Other issues Prof. Al-hassan touched on included the launch of a $100, 000 Research Fund, the victory of the UDS debate team during Ghana’s 67th  Independence Anniversary  inter-universities debate, the success of the UDS school of Medicine team at the 10th  edition of the Inter-Medical School Public Speaking Competition and the re-election of the Director of Sports at UDS, Mr. Shaibu Ibrahim Tanko as President of the Ghana Sports Association and the President of the West African Universities Sports Federation.

Professor Seidu Al-hassan, reiterated the university’s commitment to developing the requisite human resource needs for Ghana and the world at large. “I am very confident that our graduates have been equipped with the knowledge and skills in their respective disciplines to lead the process of change in their communities.” He added.

The Vice-Chancellor thanked the dedicated and ingenious staff of the University who have made these achievements possible. He also thanked the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, GTEC for accrediting many of the programmes of the University and appealed for more support from the Commission.

The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Shani Alhassan Shaibu, who represented President Akufo-Addo, congratulated the students on their achievements and urged them to go out and contribute towards the development of the nation.  “I encourage you to spare no effort in shaping a better Ghana”, he said.

The Director of Tertiary Education at the Ministry of Education, Professor Francis K. E. Nunoo, speaking on behalf of the Minister of Education, announced some of the efforts the Ministry was making in order to accelerate the process of making Ghanaian Universities and UDS in particular, a world class university. “Government is committed to the reform of our educational systems at all levels and to improve upon it, the Ministry of Education has been working diligently to strengthen the legal, institutional and regulatory framework of all agencies to ensure that they are properly aligned to provide clearer understanding of their functions and strengthen their mandate to perform efficiently”, he said.

Prof. Nunoo Added that the delivery of quality education at the pre-tertiary level is key to successful tertiary education and to improve the quality of education at this level, government committed itself to reforming the curriculum at pre-tertiary level to focus on the 4Rs, namely; writing, arithmetic, reading and creative art.  He added that a key plank of the educational reform initiative was the introduction of the Free SHS policy which began in the 2017/2018 academic year. “This policy has assisted many children to have access to SHS education who could have been denied this opportunity due to their financial circumstances” he said.

Awards were giving to exceptional student leaders as well as groups and individuals who excelled in their communities during the 2023 TTFPP period.

Story by
Tahiru Abdulai Alhassan
(UDS Media)