Professor Ernest Aryeetey, Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, says many of the initiatives put in place for strengthening of academic programmes are o yielding positive outcomes.

He said the University class size has reduced significantly to place not more than 300 students in a class in most cases.

Prof Aryeetey who made this known at the 2014/2015 congregation indicated that the facilities and equipment available to lecturers have seen steady improvements, following significant investment made by the University using internally generated funds.

Six ceremonies are being held over two days with a total of 5085 students graduating from the four colleges with degrees and diplomas made up of 4025 undergraduates, 964 graduates students and 96 diploma students.

For the first time two ceremonies were held concurrently for the morning session and afternoon session on each day.

Prof Aryeetey said most lecture rooms and residential facilities for students have been rehabilitated and the latest is the ongoing complete overhauling of student residential facilities at the Korle-Bu Campus.

He said as many as 65 per cent of the men and women teaching the students have terminal degrees, namely a doctorate, which was up from 45 per cent less than a decade ago.

He said through the university’s recently restructured PhD programmes more than 450 persons are currently registered for PhD, adding that with the anticipated growth in the area “we will be in a strong position to build the capacity of staff and other institutions for careers in research and teaching”.

He said more and more of the university students receive international recognition for their work.

He noted that that due to limited facilities and human resources, the university was able to admit only a fraction of the potentially eligible undergraduate applicants.

He said efforts to reach gender parity in admissions of students have yielded some results.

Prof Aryeetey said the percentage of female admitted to all programmes now stands at about 43 per cent, whilst the new enrolment figures for 2015/2016 academic year showed that, 8,541 students registered made up of 6,121 undergraduate students and 2,420 graduate students.

On financial aid for students, Prof Aryeetey said the university made a total donation of GH? 39,912.09 from both local and foreign donors towards financial aid for students out of which the university contributed GH? 103,932.00 from its internally generated fund.

He said the university has signed an agreement with General Electric covering a $100,000.00 scholarship package for needy but brilliant students of the university, which 100 students would have their fees and residential fees fully paid until they complete their studies.

He said four centres of excellence established at the university have been allocated GH? 1million each as seed money to develop research areas in climate change adaptation, malaria research, food production and processing and development policy and poverty monitoring and evaluation to address key developmental issues in Ghana and beyond.

He said $5million has been earmarked for refurbishment of laboratories and the replacement of obsolete scientific equipment.

He said since the beginning of the 2014/2015 academic year, 37 research grants agreements with a combined total value of 9,579.086 have been signed while 76 research proposals have been submitted to various sponsors with 24 proposals so far approved with a total value of $21,221,754.

Dr Rosemary Keatley, Chief Executive Officer of Medlab Ghana Limited said the 2015 release by the Times Higher education world rankings named the university as the best ranked university in Ghana and the 12th in Africa, adding this is a highly commendable achievement.

She told the graduands that the focus of university training is not only the acquisition of knowledge, but the development of analytical and problem solving skills, which allows them to deal with the problems that they would encounter in future.

She said real value of the paper qualification lies in how graduands apply the training received.