Undergraduate programs don’t grow Universities in Ghana - Professor Millar

A former Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor David Millar has argued that some public universities in Ghana including the Navrongo campus of the UDS are not growing as expected because they have been fixated on undergraduate programs for far too long period.

The growth of a university according to him, goes beyond merely running undergraduate programs adding that “undergraduate programs do not grow universities”.

Professor Millar who was commenting on the proposed naming of the Navrongo campus of UDS after C.K Tedam said the change in the name does not have any effect on the university and hence the need for attention to be focused on leadership and programs of the university.

“If you like name it Oxford Annex, it won’t sell” he said on Yem Radio in Bolgatanga monitored by MyNewsGh.com.

Responding to a question on why the Navrongo campus of UDS appears to be performing poorly in terms of ratings, admissions and infrastructural expansion, Prof. Millar noted that leadership has been the bane of the growth of the institution.

“A university’s growth depends on leadership like the country. Some new universities are generally created and they go to bring retired professors to provide leadership and they call them foundation Vice Chancellors. They have a lot of experience and have no stakes in there but they just do it for a contract period of 5 to 10 years and leave. So you would have to purposely select a leader who is visionary and provides resources and can think outside the box to challenge people to work” he said.

While acknowledging some strives that were made following the coming in of one Professor Nokoe, Prof. Millar believes the running of only undergraduate programs at the Navrongo UDS for a too long period largely accounted for the current state of the university which includes the lack of a single fully fledged professor at the university.

He proposed the running of post graduate and other higher programs to facilitate the growth of the university.