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The Founder of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), which started as the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS), Nana Opoku-Ampomah I, has said the school was built to fill the practice-based learning gap in the educational system.
The educationist, who is also the Paramount Chief of Amoafo Bekwai in the Ashanti Region, stated that the school became an option for students who were unable to further their education to the university because they did not qualify for Sixth Form and the university but had skills.
“I was so determined to help those students that I decided not to take a full-time job until I had got UPSA well underway.
The reason was once I had a full-time job, completing the project would have been a challenge,” he said in a release.
Nana Opoku-Ampomah added that he saw education as a means to an end.
“It is a means to help to develop a country,” he said.
IPS, then the only private business college in the country to have a special relationship with the University of Ghana, was the brainchild of Nana Opoku-Ampomah, known in private life as Joseph Kwaku Opoku-Ampomah, a former Assistant Business Manager of the Daily Graphic.
He started the institute after he had learned through his own experiences of what he calls “the gap” in Ghana’s education system.
In 1966, he applied for recognition from the NLC government and a year later received approval to go ahead.
He then applied to the Association of Certified and Corporate Accountants (ACCA) (now
the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants) in Britain and his became the only school in Ghana recognised to prepare students for the association’s examination.
The founder of UPSA touched on some valuable assistance UPSA received in order to become what it is today.
He mentioned the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Alex Kwapong, who allowed students of UPSA to use the Library of the University of Ghana Business School.
“We bought books at cost price from the university’s bookshop, hired the university’s buses for study tours and inter-institutional debates, among others,” Nana Opoku-Ampomah said.
The former Assistant Business Manager of the Daily Graphic and businessman, Nana Opoku-Ampomah, would celebrate his 95th birthday on Monday, August 28.
The release said he would mark the significant milestone in the company of the alumni of UPSA, the Police Management, led by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and other dignitaries, with the police band in attendance.
Born on August 28, 1928, Nana Opoku-Ampomah completed his basic education at the Bekwai Methodist Mission School on March 16, 1949; obtained his Elementary Certificate from London Pitman Shorthand Institute (Kumasi) on August 17, 1950 and attained his General Certificate of Education (GCE) in Kumasi through a correspondence course with University of London in August 1961.
From October 1950 to August 1961, he worked with the Institute of Extra-mural Studies (now Institute of Public Education) of the University of Ghana as a Regional Clerk.
Later, Nana Opoku-Ampomah was elected Regional Secretary of the People’s Educational Association, Ashanti Region, from 1958 to 1961.
In August 1961, he went to the Holborn College of Law in London with the intention of reading L.L.B Degree but due to lack of funds, his dream was cut short.
He then proceeded to the School of Administration of the University of Ghana to read BSc. Administration after which he secured employment with the Daily Graphic on November 23, 1966, at the Editorial Department as a journalist.
Though the only child of his parents, he has 20 children, including 12 females, with four wives.
