Government remains committed to strengthening Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as well as entrepreneurial teacher education as a pillar of the country’s industrial and technological advancement.
The Deputy Minister of Education, Dr Clement Apaak, said the government was also deliberately repositioning skills development, technical education and entrepreneurship at the centre of the nation’s development strategy.
He made the remarks while addressing the fourth congregation of the Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED) in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region last Saturday.
A total of 8,165 students from Asante Mampong and Kumasi campuses, comprising 4,879 males representing 59.80 per cent and 3,293 females also representing 40.20 per cent, were conferred with certificates, diplomas and degrees.
They were made up of 21 Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, 518 master’s, 5,701 bachelor’s degrees, 1,048 diplomas, and 877 Certificates.
Name change
“It is within this broader national vision that Parliament, on December 19, 2025, approved amendments affecting the names of three public universities, including this institution,” he said.
Those changes, he said, which were now undergoing final legal and administrative processes were not cosmetic, partisan, or incidental, “they communicate identity, mandate, and purpose”.
He said “this move is not about erasing history but rather depoliticising our academic institutions and allowing them to focus on their core mandate of learning, research and service to society”.
Dr Apaak added that Ghana’s ambition was to build a workforce that was skilled, innovative, entrepreneurial, and globally competitive, emphasising that university remained Ghana’s premier public institution for skills training, TVET teacher education and entrepreneurial development.
Increase in enrolment
He commended the management for working hard to increase the student population from 17,600 in 2020 to over 38, 000 currently, and further lauded the faculty members for their involvement in major national frameworks, including the Ghana Infrastructure Plan.
“Obviously, this underscores the critical role universities must play in shaping Ghana’s long-term future”, he said
Further, he reaffirmed the government’s commitment to the completion of the Convention Hall project initiated under the late President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, saying, “completing this project is both a practical necessity and a moral obligation to honour leadership, legacy and institutional growth”.
New programmes
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Frederick Kwaku Sarfo, said in line with the implementation of the new senior high school (SHS) standard-based curriculum, and consistent with AAMUSTED’s mandate to provide skills-oriented and entrepreneurial development teacher education, the University had developed 29 new Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) programmes with the support of Transforming Teaching, Education and Learning (T-TEL).
This initiative, he said, fulfilled the government’s directive to teacher education universities in Ghana to review their existing programmes and develop new ones to adequately prepare teachers for the evolving demands of secondary education under the standard-based curriculum.
Challenges
Touching on challenges, Professor Sarfo said the university needed adequate financial clearance to recruit additional staff, particularly academic staff, to address the widening gap in student-lecturer ratio.
In a remark, the Chairman of the Governing Council, Professor William Otoo Ellis, underscored the need to prioritise TVET education as it would help the nation address the skills gap and create self-employment.
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