Laweh Open University College, Ghana’s only open tertiary educational institution which also doubles as the second in West Africa, has held its second congregation for 61 graduating students who successfully completed their specific courses of study.
As an affiliate of Open University of Tanzania, the second congregation was held concurrently with the 39th for the Tanzania University and the gathering witnessed the conferment of various under-graduate and post-graduate degrees on the 61 graduands. About 11 of the students graduated with master’s degree in various courses whilst the other 50 graduated with bachelor degrees.
The open university concept, as accepted globally, is one that offers open-door academic policy which requires minimal or no entry requirements, coupled with employment of a blend of flexible teaching methods: on and off campus or digital learning platforms.
The advent of COVID-19 pandemic has even highlighted the relevance of this method of academic learning more and likely to be in the limelight as the new way to tackle academics especially in Africa.
Consulting President of Laweh Open University, Prof. Goski Alabi, narrated that management adopted this open concept in the year 2015, as a result of the visionary leadership by the founders who could see where the world was heading to and did not want Ghana to be left behind.
“Today, we are here to celebrate 61 graduands, bringing to total 83 graduates so far, a testament of the relevance of our existence. But more importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced institutions around the world, those prepared and those unprepared, to move into online or blended learning spaces has vindicated our vision.
When many institutions were panicking and others were striving to move studies online, Laweh was already studying both online and physically on campus as well as having a robust system for online examination and with policies to support that,” she said.
She added that whilst other tertiary institutions lamented about how to get books to students everywhere, Laweh already had in place a digital library of over 30,000 e-books, which was built here in Ghana locally and copyrighted.
Laweh Open University Collage has also embarked on collaboration with some prestigious institutions to provide some outstanding programmes to the public, this include an MoU with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to enable students who enroll on Laweh Masters Programmes particularly MSc. Development Economics and MBA Procurement and Supply Chain Management to take up 40 credits of their course with MIT and graduate with a Micro-Masters Degree from MIT and Masters from Laweh.
Laweh also entered a collaboration with Open University of Tanzania to run their PhD programmes to enroll Ghanaian students on their behalf. Already, nine students have enrolled for the PhD programme and are at different stages. Laweh also signed a partnership agreement with Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), making it a learning center where tuition for ICA exams takes place.
Co-Founder of Laweh Open University College, Prof. Joshua Alabi, emphasised that the adoption of open university concept is more important now than ever and is urging the state to embrace it. He further congratulated the graduands and encouraged them to strive to be good ambassadors of the institution as they manifest their leadership skills acquired from the school on the job market.
