GTUC signs strategic agreements with three overseas universities

International award-winner, Ghana Technology University College (GTUC), has chalked yet another milestone signing strategic and mutually beneficial agreements with three overseas private universities this month alone. This comes just weeks after GTUC picked up the keenly contested and prestigious Platinum Award for �Quality Education in Africa� at this year�s Business Initiative Direction (BID) Quality Award in Geneva, Switzerland. The institutions, which signed the agreements with GTUC, were the Stanfordshire University in the United Kingdom, Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU) in Georgia, USA, and Central State University (CSU) in Ohio, USA. Two of the agreements are for exchange programs and collaboration in a wide range of areas of academic development that would go a long way to benefit the students, faculty and administrative staff of GTUC. The third one is specifically to enable students of GTUC to make a smooth transition with their credits to a university abroad and continue their studies. President of GTUC, Dr. Osei Kofi Darkwa, and Dr. Zvi Szafran from SPSU signed the agreement to enable the two institutions to run joint academic programs and facilitate smooth transition of students from GTUC to SPSU and continue their education without repeating courses they have already covered and GTUC. The agreement covered programmes at both the bachelors and masters levels, and students are allowed to transfer their credits from GTUC to SPSU to ensure a drastic minimization of credit loss to students. The agreement also allows student doing their thesis to be supervised by faculty from both universities, but the agreement is subject to a periodic review. The second one was a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between GTUC and Central State University (CSU) in Ohio, USA to run an international academic exchange programme between students, faculty and administrators of both universities. The areas of exchange would focus mainly on students, faculty members, researchers, establishment of joint academic programs, organization of joint research programs, writing of joint proposals, and other academic and development activities. The exchange programmes are expected to facilitate research, develop international relations and boost intellectual growth between the two institutions of higher learning. President of CSU, Cynthia Jackson-Hammond, and Dr. Darkwa appended their signatures to that all important agreement on March 7, 2013. The third agreement was also a MoU between GTUC and UK-based Starfordshire University to collaborate and explore academic co-operation between the two institutions. The areas of collaboration would be mainly around progression opportunities for students, development of mutually beneficial programs, including computing, engineering, business, law and education; research, exchange of publications and reports. Other areas include exchange of faculty for the purpose of staff development, sharing of mutual experience in teaching, planning and handling of academic programs, seminars, conferences, and industrial practice. The two institutions would also explore possible joint programmes and centres of excellence, and also discuss other possible areas of mutual interest. Prof. Michael Gunn, Vice Chancellor of Stanfordshire University and Dr. Darkwa signed on behalf of their respective institutions. The school has previously signed similar agreement with other universities around the world, and according to Dr. Dawkwa, it would soon sign many more of such agreements to facilitate its drive toward offering varied doctorate and other degree programmmes in various disciplines.