Accra, 16, Feb. GNA- Universities in the country have been urged to become more innovative, entrepreneurial and creative in their quest for the provision of quality education.

"It is time for tertiary institutions in Ghana to move from situations whereby every institution seeks to do the same thing. Also conducive environment and culture should be created for students to acquire all the knowledge and skills needed for any profession." In a message read on his behalf at the fifth congregation of the Methodist University College on Saturday, President John Agyekum Kufuor said the Methodist Church, since its inception had realized that the development of any and for that matter the church hinged on the need to develop its human resources through education and training. He praised the church for putting up good academic institutions and also for providing the nation with eminent scholars who had played unique roles in the country's development and other parts of the world. He said the government considered it a priority to promote the private sector for economic growth and development. "Apart from helping in the development of the human resource base of the country, the establishment of Private Tertiary Institutions is also seen as an investment in the private sector which is the engine of growth".

The President expressed his appreciation to private institutions for the roles they had played in complementing government's efforts in its quest to provide quality education to Ghanaians. The Principal of MUCG, Professor Professor Samuel Adjepong, said the university's Economics and Mathematics as well as its M. Phil Mathematics programmes could be described as among the best in the country.

He noted that it was the university's policy to ensure that its programmes were relevant to the national development agenda and responsive to the needs of the job market. "From next academic year, the university will be rolling out a certificate programme in Educational and Moral Leadership, Chinese Language and Information and Communication Technology". The Principal said the university had established a scholarship scheme, which would seek to support brilliant but needy people within the Methodist Church.

Professor Adjepong disclosed that an 8.46-acre piece of land had been acquired by the university for the development of the permanent site of the satellite campus in Tema. Professor Clifford Nii Boye Tagoe, Vice Chancellor of the University Of Ghana appealed to MUCG to consider introducing Distance Education to enable those who could not be on campus benefit from the university's quality education that it had been offering.

He advised the graduates to put to good use the education that they had received from MUCG in order to uphold its name and also called for a better collaboration between the University of Ghana and the MUCG for their mutual benefit. The graduates were presented with various degrees with 30 of them receiving First Class Honours, 111 with Second Class Honours (Upper Class Division), 248 had Second Class Honours (Lower Class Division) and 33 graduated with Third Class Division.