GIMPA Holds Congregation, Graduate Rites

By William Yaw Owusu
Monday, 20 November 2006
THE third congregation and first undergraduate graduation of the Greenhill College of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, (GIMPA) was held in Accra on Saturday.

Some 200 mature students were awarded Bachelors Degrees, the first time such a group of students had gone through such a course of study in the country’s education history.

Among those who were awarded other degrees was Ms Hawa Yakubu, former MP and Minister of State who received Masters (MGL) in Governance, Leadership and Public Management.

Professor Stephen Adei, Rector of GIMPA did not hide his excitement when he said "the dream of quality adult education in Ghana has been realized, we have opened this opportunity to thousands of Ghanaians who would otherwise have been excluded from university education in Ghana."

He said currently about 20 per cent of the country’s members of Parliament were pursuing Masters Programme in Governance and Leadership at GIMPA and there were other masters programmes including one in public sector management for Anglophone West African Countries.

He said GIMPA was committed to building of a strong, professional, efficient and effective civil service. He described as baseless the accusation that GIMPA is expensive and that is why civil servants could not train there saying fees for dedicated training programmes have been pegged at nominal for six years without even inflationary adjustment.

Prof. Adei said, "It is the lack of bold and strategic long-term thinking that has led many of our once premier institutions to denegrate to the point where today they have to contend with the harrowing situation where five people are living in a room meant for one person."

"We in GIMPA have no choice, therefore but to think decades ahead, learn from the experiences of our seniors and do things differently," he added.

He said the institute will need about¢300 billion to create an excellent educational hub for the training of the country’s leaders in politics, public management and business.

The money if accessed would be used to provide facilities such as world class faculty, cutting edge technology, good technical and management systems, state-of-the-art infrastructure and topmost rated programmes, he said and added that GIMPA’s dream would be realized if the Ghana Education Trust Fund could assist with an annual inflow of ¢10 billion for the next ten years.

"GIMPA is committed to building a strong professional, efficient and effective civil service. We are second to none. We cannot and we must not take for granted or leave to chance the selection of those who will lead Ghana’s business, bureaucracy and politics ten to 20 years down the road."