The Presbyterian University College, Ghana held its 13th congregation ceremony for 702 graduating students.

The ceremony, which took place at the Okwahu campus at Kwahu-Abetifi in the Eastern Region, was to recap graduating students, to unearth the acquired skills and competencies from their various programmes, as they seek to enter the world of work.

President of Presbyterian University College, Ghana, Reverend Professor Addo Obeng, in his address said he  welcomes the government's decision of initiating a number of reforms in the tertiary education sector which is currently before Parliament that seeks to create a single tertiary education regulatory body in Ghana and to also seeks to regulate the establishment of new private university colleges and abolish, as it was, the issue of mentorship and affiliation of private universities to a public university.

According to him, all these reforms would have a significant effect, both positive and negative, on private universities in Ghana, and it is good news to managers of private universities since there are public universities that have been set up and are operating but were never put under mentorship or affiliated to any of the older public universities.

‘’They started walking immediately they were born. Eight of the country’s ten Polytechnics were upgraded into Technical Universities without being subjected to affiliation and mentorship. The new bill will do away with affiliation and set out rules and guidelines for the establishment of a private university’’ he said.

He noted that ‘’Once an institution meets these guidelines, stringent as they are, it would start as an autonomous institution. I am sure this will speed up the process of the charter of many of the existing private universities as well, including the Presbyterian University College, Ghana, and thus remove some the financial burden from the heads of private university management’’

On the Centralized Applications and Placement System which is before Parliament where there will be only one platform for admission of freshmen and women into the Ghanaian public universities, Reverend Professor Addo Obeng noted that PUCG has decided to be on the platform and are currently working to improve ICT infrastructure and redesigning its admission forms and processes so that they can be on the system when it is finally rolled out.

He said the new Bill which when becomes law, all persons who wish to teach in tertiary education institutions in Ghana would be expected to have at least a postgraduate diploma in Education, adding that the PUC has also already rolled out such programs whereby two of their teachers have already graduated and about five have finished their first semester courses.

On his part, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante appealed to the government to consider entering into a partnership with the Private Universities in ensuring that the Free Senior High School programme is sustained.

He noted that with the introduction of the Centralized Admission Placement System [CAPS], the expected increase in the enrolment into the various universities in the 2020/2021 Academic Year won't be a nightmare to parents and students, contrary to the assumption that only the rich attend the private universities.