TWO Nigerians have won the top prize at the 9th graduation congregation of the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), a leading technology-focused private university in Ghana.The event held at the Ghanaian capital city over the weekend. In a statement by the university, Mr. Peter Hunnoho Moses, who graduated with a First Class Honours Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology, was judged the overall best student of the graduating class with a Cumulative Grade Point Aggregate of 3.99.

The overall best student in the female category went to Ms. Odinaka Abel Favour, who graduated with a First Class Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, with a cumulative GPA of 3.90. In his speech to the congregation, Professor Clement Dzidonu, the President of the university, described this as a major achievement given that AIT has the toughest and the highest grading system within the university system in Ghana. “To get an A grade in a subject at AIT, you must score above 90; and to get a First Class with a cumulative GPA close to the maximum 4.2 means that a student must consistently get A grades across the board,” Professor Dzidonu noted.

The Deputy Minister for Education, responsible for Tertiary Education, Hon. Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa, who was the Special Guest of Honour, congratulated the university for mounting mainly science, technology and engineering programmes, which in his view, is in line with the Ghanaian government’s determination to implement and enforce the 60:40 policy guidelines aimed at giving priority to science, mathematics and engineering programmes in the nation’s tertiary institutions. He announced that in line with this, the Ministry of Education through the National Accreditation Board (NAB) and the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) has drawn up new guidelines that will ensure that the accreditation of new universities and academic programmes meets these guidelines.

“To be approved for accreditation, a university must more or less show that it will be like AIT in its academic programme offerings,” he observed. The deputy minister also congratulated those receiving the overall best graduating student awards and noted that Ghana is currently attracting over 7000 foreign students from close to 60 countries to its private and public universities annually. Professor Francis K. Allotey, the Chairman of the AIT Board of Trustees, in his address to the congregation, announced the election of  two eminent  internationally distinguished  academics to the board, namely Professor  Goolam Mohamedbhai, who is the former vice chancellor of University of Mauritius;  former Secretary -General of the Association of African Universities (AAU); former President of the International Association of Universities (IAU)  and  the former Chairman of the Association of Commonwealth Universities.