Professor Smile Dzisi has been appointed as the fourth Rector of the Koforidua Polytechnic.

By her appointment, Prof Dzisi becomes the first woman Rector of a Polytechnic in the country.

Before her appointment, Prof Dzisi was the Dean of Graduate Studies of the Polytechnic and she is expected to assume office on August 1, this year.

Prof Esther Sakyi-Dawson, the chairperson of the Governing Council of the Polytechnic, announced this at the Eleventh Congregation of the Polytechnic in Koforidua.

She said, for the 18 years of the existence of the Koforidua Polytechnic, it had witnessed a lot of improvement in the quality and number of staff, student enrolment, and infrastructural development.

Prof Sakyi-Dawson, however, appealed to the government, to consider the polytechnic as one of the new institutions in the country to be given special funding from the GETFund, to accelerate its infrastructural development.

She said the funding would further assist the polytechnic to attain its objective as a tertiary institution offering Bachelor in Technology, Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes and Postgraduate Technology programmes.

She appealed to students and staff of the Polytechnic, to use dialogue to resolve any differences, cautioning that the Governing Council would be swift and decisive in dealing with any person or group of persons who would use unacceptable ways to disturb the peace of the Polytechnic.

The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere, challenged the graduating students to use the training they have received at the polytechnic to establish their own companies, to help create employment for others.

The former Rector of the Polytechnic, Prof Raynolds Okai, advised students who graduated at the HND level, to apply for degree programmes at the polytechnic and continue to the doctorate level.

He described the situation of going to the university to start a degree programme at level 100 as a waste of time and resources of the individual and the nation at large.

In all, 53 Bachelor of Technology students and as many as 1,711 HND students graduated, with the over-all best HND student award going to Godwin Uzoma Chikwere, with Emmanuel Odoom receiving the over-all best award for the Bachelor of Technology programme.