Ghana's newest public university has made a bold promise.
The University of Engineering and Agricultural Sciences (UEAS) at Bunso in the Eastern Region says it will transform engineering and agricultural education in Ghana.
It is a promise we have heard before from new institutions.
But the concept behind UEAS, as explained by its Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mark Adom-Asamoah, deserves both attention and cautious optimism.
UEAS is Ghana's first fully fledged university that deliberately integrates engineering, agricultural science, innovation and entrepreneurship to train hands-on, industry-ready graduates.
Its stated aim is to become a centre of excellence in engineering innovation and agro-entrepreneurship and a leading institution on the African continent.
The university has been designed to respond to three of Ghana's most stubborn development challenges: industrialisation, food security and youth unemployment.
That framing is correct. For decades, we have complained that Ghana's tertiary education system produces graduates who are heavy on theory and light on practical problem-solving capabilities.
Engineering students learn to design on paper but many have never touched a machine.
Agriculture students can recite soil chemistry but cannot manage a farm as a business. And both streams rarely talk to each other.
UEAS wants to break that silo.
Unlike the conventional approach where disciplines are trained separately, Prof. Adom-Asamoah explained, UEAS will bring engineering and agriculture students together to solve real-world problems.
The example he gave is instructive: in developing smart agriculture systems, engineering students will develop irrigation technology while agriculture students will provide the agronomic intelligence on when, how and how much water crops need based on temperature and crop physiology.
That is smart agriculture in practice, not in PowerPoint.
If this model works, it addresses Ghana's most glaring paradox: an agricultural country that imports food, and a country desperate for industrialisation that imports simple agricultural machinery.
The university's other pillars are equally important.
First, is its innovation centre. The management of the university insists that students will have access to machinery and facilities to experiment, design and prototype.
The fact that UEAS already has faculty buildings, laboratories, a library, an administration block, halls of residence and staff accommodation on a planned campus at Bunso suggests we are not starting from a bush with a signboard.
Second, entrepreneurship courses will form part of the core curriculum, not an afterthought.
The idea is to produce job creators, not just job seekers.
Third is depth over breadth.
The fact that UEAS will give students specialised training in core areas such as agronomy from year one to year four, unlike traditional cases where students only get two years of specialisation after a common first year, is a quiet revolution.
It is the German technical university model that produces true specialists.
The Daily Graphic is aware of the establishment of several technical universities and specialised institutions in the last decade with similar lofty promises, only for them to be strangled by inadequate funding, poor industry linkage, lack of laboratories and politicisation of management. UEAS must not suffer that fate.
It is our belief that for UEAS to truly transform agricultural practice, three things must happen.
It must be rooted in Bunso and the Eastern Region's agricultural reality.
The university sits in Ghana's cocoa and oil palm belt, close to the Bunso Cocoa College and the CSIR-Plant Genetic Resources Centre.
It must partner with farmers, not just lecture them. Its research must solve the farmer's problem of post-harvest losses, access to low-cost mechanisation and climate-resilient seeds.
Secondly, industry must have a seat at the table from day one.
The proposed MoU between UEAS and the Graphic Communications Group Ltd is a good start for visibility, but more critical are MoUs with the Association of Ghana Industries, the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority, agribusiness firms and engineering firms.
Students must undertake real industrial attachments, and industry must co-design the curriculum.
That is how you produce industry-ready graduates.
The third pointer is sustainability of funding.
The $92 million Korean loan has built the campus. But world-class engineering and agriculture training is expensive to maintain.
The Daily Graphic calls on the government to treat UEAS not just as another line in GETFund and walk away.
The Ministry of Education, which inaugurated its Governing Council and Core Management Team on May 12, 2026 ahead of the 2026/2027 academic year, must ensure a clear financing model that keeps laboratories running, workshops stocked and high-calibre staff retained.
Ghana needs UEAS to succeed.
If we are to industrialise, feed ourselves and employ our youth, we need a new kind of graduate — one who can weld, code, farm, process and sell.
UEAS has pledged to produce that graduate.
The nation is watching and willing to support.
