Members of Central Regional CHASS Listening to the Vice Chancellor
Some members of the Conference of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) from the Central Region have paid a working visit to the University of Mines and Technology to familiarise themselves with the activities in the University. According to Nana Aqcuah, the President of the group, it was their tradition every year after a hectic admissions session to take time off to go on a retreat where they would share ideas and experiences with their members and to plan for the way forward. It was on such an occasion that they decided to embark on an educational tour to UMaT.
After the Registrar, Mr A. K. Doku had introduced the Staff of the University present to the delegation, the Vice Chancellor, Prof J. S. Y. Kuma welcomed the CHASS members and made a short presentation about the history of the University and some of the laurels the University had chalked in the past year to them. He spoke about the quality and uniqueness of the programmes being run in UMaT and indicated that as the only mining University in West Africa, UMaT continues to support local content by producing quality graduates in mining and allied engineering disciplines who are working in various industries especially the mining and energy sectors all over the world.
Prof Kuma told them that their visit was very important to the University since they were going to serve as advocates for the University for their students who would be the prospective applicants for admission into the University. He also said that UMaT was the best public funded University because: the University was the most compliant of the standards and norms of the NAB and the NCTE in the country, the best Student-Teacher Ratio in science and engineering, a very strong Quality Assurance system and the best fee schedule among other criteria. He stated further that UMaT’s programmes were practically oriented and so they gave the students an edge over their counterparts in other Universities in the same disciplines and that this made many foreign students from different countries in Africa to choose UMaT as the place to study in Ghana. He informed them that in UMaT all students were taught some social science causes, such as Principles of Economics, Communication Skills, Public Relations and Basic French with the aim to make them all round engineers.
Prof Kuma Making a Presentation on the University to the Delegation
Prof Kuma again told the CHASS members about the exciting story of some former students of the University who had first class in their programmes and were awarded scholarships to study for their PhDs in the University of South Australia and how two of them made the University proud by winning medals by presenting the best theses among their peers.
Some members of the visiting group wanted to know the future of mining in the country and why UMaT was maintaining the Mining in its name. Explaining, the Pro Vice Chancellor, Pro V.A, Temeng indicated that mining had a bright future in the country and that there were many natural resources that still needed to be exploited. He further said that anything valuable had to be taken from the ground and so mining was still relevant in the country and the world over.
Nana Aqcuah on his part expressed the group’s appreciation to the Vice Chancellor for the warm reception they had received from the University and said that they would carry the good message about the University across to their students.
After the presentations, the members were conducted round the Petroleum Engineering Laboratory, one of the most modern and well equipped laboratories in the University for them to understand at firsthand what was going on there.
Source: Paul Y.A. Yeboah, Assistant Registrar (University Relations)
