Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has bemoaned the low number of Ghanaians acquiring tertiary education, as compared to other African countries.

According to the vice president, 12 percent Gross Enrollment Ratio (intake) – which represents between 28,000 and 35,000 – is too low if the country is to develop at a faster rate. He said the ‘Free SHS’ policy, which is to begin next month, is to address the shortfall in tertiary education in the country.

Dr. Bawumia expressed these sentiments when he addressed the second batch of graduating students from the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) over the weekend.

He said though there had been massive growth in the tertiary education sub-sector since 2000, the gross enrollment ratio is still low.

The vice president noted that the policy is going to have ripple effect on the public universities as well as other higher institutions. To this, he said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government would continue to fund and expand public universities to take up the challenge, adding that it would provide infrastructure, laboratory equipment, capacity development, ICT infrastructure, accommodation, among others.

The vice president also spoke on the need for universities to redesign their curricula to equip students with skills, mathematics, science and technology to meet the demands of industries. He was not happy that Ghanaian universities are churning more humanity students than science, technology and mathematics students. “The current ratio of 60 humanities to 40 sciences (math & technology) must change to vice versa if the country is to leap in development,” he advocated.

He asked the students to use their science and technology backgrounds to help solve problems in the agricultural sector and increase food production.

He praised the university for establishing a fire monitoring laboratory under the Earth Observation Research Innovation Centre to monitor, detect wildfire in the West African sub-region within a very short period of its occurrence, among other initiatives.

In all, 628 students from School of Engineering and School of Science, 219 from School of Natural Resources, 105 from School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and 62 from Renewable Energy Engineering were awarded degrees.

The rests were 63 from Mechanical Engineering, 60 from Computer Science, 15 from Statistics and 219 from Natural Resources Management received degrees.

The vice chancellor of the university, Prof Harrison Kwame Dapaah, pleaded with the government to allow the Ministry of Finance to give the school financial clearance to enable it recruit more lecturers. The vice president presented the overall best student, Aduama Prince Tagayi Roland Kobla – from the Electrical and Electronic Faculty – with a degree, a plaque and cash prize of GH¢2,000, donated by the Vice Chancellor.