Kumasi, April 3, GNA - The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has resolved to foster joint education programmes as it seeks to become a centre of excellence in science and technology education, Professor William Otoo Ellis, the Vice-Chancellor, has said.

He indicated that such programmes enhanced capacity building development, technology transfer and also ensured that courses run by the university were up to standard.

Prof Ellis said the KNUST's capacity to produce the needed manpower for the sustainable development of the country and Africa in general was crucial since any country's wealth depended on its human resource base.

This was contained in a speech read on his behalf in Kumasi at the graduation ceremony of six Master of Science Students, who underwent about a year course in Geo-Information for Natural Resource Management, at the University.

The course is a joint programme between the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente in the Netherlands and KNUST. They studied Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing Techniques and their application in Natural Resources Management. Prof Ellis announced that the programme was recently evaluated by the University authorities to assess its relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and how to sustain it in the interest of the two universities.

It was also to determine the demand, marketability and viability of the joint programme in general for the benefit of the students. The Vice-Chancellor said Geo-Information Techniques had become important tools for supporting decision-making against the backdrop of the fact that the world in general was confronted with varied natural resource and environmental management problems. Prof Wouter Verhoef of the University of Twente in the Netherlands, charged the graduating students to work harder and put the knowledge they had acquired into practice. He said his University had gone into joint education programmes with universities in Asia, Latin America and Africa to foster capacity building development for the mutual benefit of the universities.