UPSA moves to bridge industry-academia gap, introduces three new postgraduate courses

As part of efforts by the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) to bridge the gap between industry and academia, it has introduced three new postgraduate courses.

The three — MA in Peace. Security and Intelligence, MA in Brands and Communications Management and MBA in Impact Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme — according to the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor Charles Barnor, was in response to growing demands for graduates with the requisite skills to meet industry and job market requirements.

Speaking at the launch on Wednesday, he said UPSA was pursuing its mission to provide and promote higher professional education and training in business and other social science related disciplines by leveraging a structured mix of scholarships with professionalism in Ghana and beyond.

He said UPSA would continue to design programmes to meet the complexities of industry, and was thus ready to help train its graduates to become the preferred manpower to get industry moving in the country.

Overview of courses

Giving an overview of the courses, Prof. Barnor said the UPSA graduate programme in Peace, Security and Intelligence studies would give its graduates specialised skills set to identify, tackle and respond to emerging challenges.

“Within the broad framework of the Centre’s mandate, the programme will offer prospects for research and innovative thinking and offer solutions to the challenges faced by West African states,” he said.

The programme, he said, was designed for professionals and others seeking to develop their skills in the context of broader theoretical and empirical discourses as well as graduates with a career in government, the security and allied services, inter-governmental organisations, Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs), academia as well as other relevant agencies.

He said the MA in Brands and Communications Management programme would be a natural progression into the MBA Marketing programme and also a natural continuation from the BSc Marketing Programme.

“This will combine theory and practice in an interdisciplinary, multi-tracked curriculum to address the expanding opportunities and needs of brands and communications management expertise in industry,” he said.

Touching on the MBA in Impact Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, Prof. Barnor said Ghana like other developing economies was endowed with a highly entrepreneurial talent but was unable to fully tap into this due to varied factors such as socio-economic circumstances.

He said to change this narrative required equipping active and potential entrepreneurs with the necessary skills, experiences and networks to give themselves the best chance at scaling their impact to affect many.

“The proposed programme places much emphasis on the identification of opportunities and ideas in the environment and quipping students with the capacity to manage and grow these ideas in viable businesses to create jobs and reduce unemployment,” he said.

Course Coordinator

The Coordinator for the MA Brands and Communications Management, Mr I.K. Abdul-Hamid, in an interview said the response towards the newly introduced courses had been very positive.

He said the Brands and Communications Management course currently had a population of 30 students on the weekend shift, adding that the university was set to run evening and sandwich modules by next year.

Mr Abdul- Hamid who also doubles as the acting Coordinator for the MA in Peace, Security and Intelligence, said the course was yet to start although some students had already been registered.

He also called on students seeking to pursue a career in any of the listed courses to see UPSA as the preferred choice.