The Sunyani Technical University (STU) at the weekend held its 13th congregation and awarded Bachelor of Technology degrees to 389 graduates.

They successfully underwent four-year programmes in Engineering, Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET), Applied Science and Technology, Applied Arts as well as Business and Management disciplines.

The graduates comprised 226 males and 163 females, with 65 of them obtaining first class, 253 second class upper, and 71 second class lower.

Speaking at the ceremony held in Sunyani, Professor Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah, the Vice-Chancellor of the STU, emphasised the University was prepared to absorb more students and therefore urged qualified applicants, particularly from the free Senior High School programmes to apply, as the University re-opens in January 2021.

It was held under the theme "Technical and Vocational Education Training: The Key to Sustainable Job Creation in Ghana."

Prof. Adinkrah-Appiah explained the University had obtained accreditation to run seven new four-year BTech programmes which would be rolled out in January 2021.

They include BTech Mechanical Engineering, BTech Civil Engineering, BTech Construction and Technology, BTech Hospitality and Tourism Management, BTech General Agriculture and BTech Fashion Design Technology.

These programmes, Prof Adinkrah-Appiah, said would be run concurrently with the existing 11 top-up BTech programmes at the University.

The institution had also received clearance for the introduction of five other four-year BTech programmes, while six others were pending at the National Council for Technical Education (NCTE), the VC added.

He indicated the University had made ready one 500-seater auditorium and six other classroom spaces, with various capacities, to comfortably accommodate new students who would be enrolled unto its four-year BTech programmes.

Prof. Adinkrah-Appiah emphasised the STU continued to pursue the development of its staff, saying the institution had recently paid a refund of GHC366,000.00 through its internally- generated fund as school fees to staff who were on sponsorship on various programmes in the country.

He added approval had also been given to two staff to undertake PhD studies in China on study-leave-with-pay while other new applications for sponsorship would be considered by the staff development and scholarship committee in due course.

The government, Prof Adinkrah-Appiah said had improved on the conditions of service of technical Universities by rolling them unto the Public Universities Salary Structure, which he believed would help end the acute attrition rate being faced by Technical Universities in the country.

"We urge the government to complete the process by ensuring that there are no differentials, as far as salaries and allowances are concerned, between the Technical University staff and traditional university staff of similar status", he appealed.