Immediate Past Director-General of CSIR Ghana, Professor Victor Agyemang
Immediate Past Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Ghana, Professor Victor Agyemang has urged graduates of the various institutions to learn how to create their own jobs with the knowledge they have acquired rather than waiting to get employment.
According to him, graduates waiting for employment in this modern period will be a waste of time in years that could affect their fortunes too.
Delivering a speech as a guest speaker during a graduation ceremony for students who had acquired masters degree at the Christian Service University College (CSUC), Professor Victor Agyemang disclosed that recent statistics show that only ten percent of graduates who complete schools in Ghana get employment in their first year.
He has therefore urged graduates not to wait many years before they can be employed or end up being jobless.
"By creating your own jobs, you'll have an impact on the economy. Otherwise, it may take you five(5) to six (6) years before getting a job which may be wasted time over a supposed profitable venture. Therefore, I urge you to leave here with the mentality that you are going to set up your own enterprise. And then you are going to make a change. So, that is the opportunity you're given," he told the graduating students during his speech.
He said, by so doing they can help transform the economy to help see the better Ghana that we all want adding that post-graduate education which plays a crucial role in the national development agenda must always reflect in the lives of graduates.
According to him, a country's success was never determined by the amount of resources it had but by the pool of intellectual properties that may be available in that country. Expatiating his points, the experienced professor disclosed that intellects become beneficial to a nation only when they learn to use the skill they have acquired in a very profitable manner.
"This is because, in graduate education, you give people the skills. In Masters, PHD, you specialise to get the needed skills. Therefore, any country can only develop when it puts emphasis on graduate education," he emphasized.
As earlier indicated, the professor said this during a 46th special congregation for master's degree students and other graduates.
For his part, Professor Sam Afranie, president of the university disclosed that 206 graduands were graduating on the day with different courses where he further gave the breakdown as follows;
\20 (9.7%) graduating in MA Christian Ministry with Management; 119 (58.0%) in MSc. Accounting and Finance; MSc. Monitoring and Evaluation 60 (29.0%); 5 (2.4%) in MSc. Corporate Planning and Governance; 2(0.9%) in Postgraduate in Ministry. In terms of gender, 162 (79%) were males and 44 (21%) were females.
He happily revealed that the school had successfully added three new postgraduate programmes, namely; MPhil in Communication Studies, Mathematics and English Education to the existing four programmes.
He further disclosed that they were making preparations towards introducing three new postgraduate courses in the next academic year where he assured learners that there were more opportunities for further postgraduate training for them at the CSUC even after their graduation.
