Panellists at the 2026 GIMPA Academic Excellence Conference have called for stronger collaboration between academia and industry in order to equip graduates with employable skills.
They urged universities to go beyond theory into real world problem solving courses to produce critical thinkers ready to thrive in any fast shifting job market.
The speakers were the Chairman of the Construction Sector of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Eric Defor; the Director of Policy Planning, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), John Dadzie Mensah; a Level 200 student of GIMPA, Reginald Quarshie; the Dean of the GIMPA Business School, Professor Bernard Acquah Obeng, and the Coordinator of GIMPA Law School, Desmond Israel.
The conference was organised by the Office of the Deputy Rector of GIMPA, in collaboration with the Directorate of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance of the institute.
Participants discussed evolving challenges such as curriculum development and other issues confronting academics in the country.
It was on the theme: “Strengthening academic excellence: Addressing challenges, deepening quality and enhancing impact.”
Challenges
Mr Defor said industries often had to spend significant resources retraining newly recruited graduates due to inadequate hands-on experience in institutions.
He stressed the need for longer and more structured industrial internships, saying the current one-month internship training was insufficient.
Mr Mensah said universities remained relevant beyond job preparation even in the face of rapid technological change, adding that universities would still be critical for developing human capacity in decision-making, leadership and societal transformation.
In the case of developing curricula, he said it must go through rigorous processes and reviewed periodically with active industry input to ensure relevance and quality.
Mr Quarshie further advocated for flexible curricula that allowed students to explore interests outside their core programmes, while also calling for an integration of digital learning and artificial intelligence into teaching and learning.
For his part, Prof. Obeng said innovation was essential for the survival of universities, adding that institutions that failed to innovate risked becoming irrelevant.
The Coordinator of GIMPA Law School, Mr Israel, shared personal experiences of moving from law into policy through exposure to practical academic work, including writing policy papers that led to fellowship opportunities.
Vision
The Rector of GIMPA, Professor Samuel Bonsu, in a speech read on his behalf by the Secretary of the institute, Dr Mrs Victoria Kunbuor, said the conference aligned with the institute’s efforts to ensure continuous improvement and overcoming the challenges of modern education landscape.
He said it was crucial to discuss matters on preparing graduates for the job market and addressing unemployment issues in the country.
The Deputy Rector of GIMPA, Prof. Ebenezer Adaku, stressed the need to enhance academic work to reflect research that informed national development and governance.
The Director of Tertiary Education of the Ministry of Education, Dr Emmanuel Newman, said growth and sustainability in self-financing public universities should not be reduced to revenue generation alone, but must be viewed as a structural transformation in institutional planning and governance.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh