The graduates completed Master’s and Bachelor’s degree programmes from the various faculties including the Faculty of Law, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Central Business School, School of Architecture and Design, School of Engineering and Technology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and the Centre for Distance and Professional Education.

Seventy-three of the students obtained First Class degrees with 18 receiving special awards and commendations.

Progress and development

Addressing the congregants at the ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Bill Buenar Puplampu, expressed joy in the fact that the school had made great strides in training students to excel in various careers including the law profession, physician assistantship, journalism and nursing.

He added that three students from the Department of Communication and Media Studies had secured Investigative Journalism Fellowships with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and a former student, who was called to the bar recently was adjudged the second-best performing student in the part two Bar final examination.

Prof. Puplampu further explained that the school had received accreditation for some new programmes in Law, Paralegal Studies, Development policy, Educational leadership and Administration, among others.

He added that the school was collaborating with various health facilities to enhance quality education for students within the health sciences.

“Staying with the medical theme, the university has consolidated several MoUs with major health facilities including the UGMC for the practical clinical experience rotations of our students in Nursing and Pharmacy,” he said.

Policy issues

Prof. Puplampu urged that legal education in the country be revamped and various structures put in place to enhance its theoretical approach to study.

“Legal education was trending last year but seems to have simmered down. Our view, as articulated last year, is let us move towards a training, examination, licensure structure that allows aspiring people to acquire the needed theoretical and applied training from specifically accredited Law Faculties,” he added.

He, however, commended the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) for implementing policies to ensure that there was sanity in the accreditation space.

“I commend the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission for grabbing the errant bull by the horns and bringing some order into the accreditation space with its recent attention to the accreditation challenges of some of the known universities,” he commended.

Environment sustainability

Putting a spotlight on the recently ended United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), the Vice- Chancellor bemoaned the challenge of pollution that was menacing the country and urged citizens to join in the fight against its eradication.

“If we are serious about the environment, then we must be serious about the institutions and efforts which will demonstrate in concrete terms that our rules on the built and unbuilt environment are enforceable,” he said.

Awards

The best graduating student, Joyce Nyarko, who also excelled as the best student in Psychology and the best female student, was awarded an amount of GH¢3,500.00 and a memento for academic exploits.

She also received a US$1,000 and a Macbook as the Chancellor’s special award to the valedictorian.

Duly dissolving the 21st congregation, the Chancellor of the university, Rev. Dr Mensa Otabil, urged all the graduating students to go out into their respective fields of endeavours with confidence, greatness, prominence and exceptionalism.