Speaking at the launch in Accra, Professor Abednego Feehi Okoe Martey, the Vice Chancellor, UPSA, said: "Master Class is a concept I conceived some time ago when I became burdened with the lack of 'practical industry insight' by Ghanaian graduates which immensely contributed to Ghana's high graduate unemployment.

"My conviction was that business and management education, which integrate theory and practice, will not only be a valuable learning experience for Ghanaian university students, but also provide a good return on investment".

He said industrial practitioners for a long time had criticised traditional business and management education as being too theoretical and lacking a focus in integrating learning with application at the work place.

"There has been a call on higher education providers to inculcate a midget into students to think outside the box to help our country achieve increased productivity and a resilient economy. "It is my view that in the face of a rapidly changing globalised market place, business schools in Ghana have a responsibility to adopt the work-applied approach to teach students the skills and the qualities that businesses need," he stated.

He explained that work-applied approach means that student apply the learnings to current real business situations.Prof. Martey said UPSA's vision is to be the world class education provider in both academic and professional discipline, nationally entrenched, regionally relevant and globally recognised.

"To be relevant, our university has to churn out graduates, who are not only endowed with theoretical and academic knowledge but also deep-seated practical knowledge," the Vice Chancellor said. "Superior educational value should mean taking the classroom to industry and bringing industry to the classroom," he added.

He said UPSA believed that quality education must give their students the knowledge, skills and confidence which prepared them for a career and positioned them to reach their fullest potential to be industry-relevant.He said the UPSA aimed at generating fully-fledged complete and balanced graduates, who would lead change, drive innovation and solve complex problems.

"To this end, we are introducing Professional Master Class, a complimentary component to our academic programmes; which places learning in the context of real-world application.  “The goal of the Professional Master Class is simply to infuse and to instil practical industry insight into our students," he stated.

"We have therefore, carefully invited industry experts and practitioners, who are accomplished in industry and wield several years of experience and practical wisdom to share their knowledge and experience with us," he added.Prof Martey said the Professional Master Class would boost the confidence of their graduates, knowing that their qualification would be recognised by employers.

He said the Professional Master Class would be beneficial to industry, as it would contribute to producing effective graduates that could deliver results in the work place. Prof Charles Bannor, the Pro-Vice Chancellor, UPSA, hailed the Vice Chancellor for the innovative Professional Master Class project.

He said the UPSA over the years had been introducing very innovative programmes.