CCTU Vice-Chancellor Professor Joshua Danso Owusu-Sekyere extols giant strides

Professor Joshua Danso Owusu-Sekyere, the outgoing Vice-Chancellor of Cape Coast Technical University (CCTU) has applauded the university’s commitment to academic excellence that had culminated in its recent giant academic strides.

Regardless of the institution’s enormous challenges, he said it had chalked enormous successes in academic innovation, technology, human resource, and infrastructure development.

Others are renewed partnerships, collaborations, and health improvements that had set the institution apart among its co-equals in Ghana and West Africa.

Prof. Owusu-Sekyere disclosed this at the 19th Congregation of the university, which saw a total of 1,280 students graduate with various Degrees and Diplomas.

Of the total, 336 students comprising 26.25 per cent graduated with Bachelor of Technology degrees as 525 students representing 41.02 per cent were also honoured with Higher National Diploma whilst 419 students making 32.73 per cent received Professional Diploma certificates.

Highlighting the gains, Prof. Owusu-Sekyere said the Department of Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship had developed an innovative and interdisciplinary curriculum aimed at enhancing practical knowledge and employable skills in the field of entrepreneurship and agribusiness.

It involved the establishment of a Business Incubation Centre, which provides students with the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge in a practical setting through support, planning, and tools to succeed.

Through that, he said the Department of Construction Technology and Management had won a GH¢1.3 million grant from the Ghana Skills Development Fund to aid their activities.

Relatedly, he said the Engineering Design and Innovation Centre had also commenced its novel ECORIDE Project, which seeks to offer CCTU students and staff an environmentally friendly and commercially viable transportation system.
It seeks to provide an alternative means of transportation while serving as a source of internally generated funds to the University.

In addition, work had began on the ECOBUS project—a mobile classroom for experiential learning with a conference room on wheels and a standby generator.

It is equipped with solar panels and a battery bank system to supply energy to the bus for the lighting and powering of all electrical or electronic systems on the bus, and a charging centre for the solar trikes during power outages.
For agricultural innovation, Prof. Owusu-Sekyere said CCTU had started designing and fabricating equipment suitable for mechanizing the production and processing of commercial crops.

They include cowpea, soybeans, sugarcane, maize, carrot, and cabbage.

Furthermore, it had designed its first seed planter which he said was undergoing testing and evaluation to improve its functionalities to be unveiled this year.

Prof. Owusu-Sekyere said CCTU had embarked on an initiative to upgrade at least one innovative student project with commercial viability each year.

For that matter, CCTU has selected an automatic drink bottling machine designed and fabricated by Mechanical engineering students to be upgraded and powered by solar.

The equipment scheduled to be unveiled this year, will be useful to local drink makers in both urban and rural areas where electricity remained a challenge.

For the Department of Tourism Management, he said CCTU has also won a grant of GH¢200.044.00 for the training of the staff and the purchase of various equipment for teaching support.

Prof Owusu-Sekyere said the institution had increased its programme offerings from 30 in 2019, to 70 and were duly accredited by the Ghana Education Commission (GTEC).

They include; two M-Tech, 22 four-year B-Tech, 14 B-Tech topup, 14 Higher National Diploma and 20 Diploma programmes.
For human resource development, he said 35 staff were persuing doctoral studies, six on MPhil programmes, 11 pursuing bachelor’s degrees and nine staff pursuing HND, among others.

For his part, Prof Harold Amonoo-Kuofi Council Chairman, advised the students to put their skills to good use and support their alma mater.