Vice-President John Mahama congratulating the overall best student, Peter Kojo Ajeivi at the congrgation of the Institute of Professional Studies at Legon in Accra.
He said there was the need for a new kind of educated Ghanaians who would use their knowledge and skills to address issues confronting the nation.
That, he said, was one way which the country could attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and proceed to attain a self-sustaining economy.
Mr Mahama made the call at the congregation of the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) in Accra on Saturday. It was the first congregation of IPS after its attainment of the status of an autonomous public university which could award its own degrees.
Five hundred and fifty-eight students graduated and obtained degrees in Business Administration, Accounting and Marketing. Mr Peter Kojo Adjeivi emerged the overall best student.
Mr Mahama said the 21st century posed a lot of challenges, which "require us to re-orientate our educational curricula towards innovative thinking and analysis in order to meet the exigencies of contemporary times".
He said without denigrating other areas of academic pursuits, he believed that science and mathematics were key to the accelerated development of the country.
Mr Mahama added that the development in technologies had created a level playing field as never seen before since every professional worker was potentially an equal competitor.
He said the development of Ghana's human resource, was one of the key thematic areas of the government, since education "constitutes the basis for economic development in any country."
He said the phenomenal socio-economic transformation in South East Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore and Korea could be attributed to their human resource which was developed through education.
"It is for this reason that all of us need to equip our educational institutions, especially at the tertiary level, to help address the socio-economic challenges facing the country", he said, and commended institutions like the IPS for developing the human capacity required for the sustainable growth and transformation of the country.
Mr Mahama said the government was reinvesting in agriculture and agribusiness while the oil and gas sector was opening up.
Therefore, he said, it was necessary to train the needed human resource and manpower "to move our nation forward".
He charged IPS to train professionals, not only for the oil and gas sector but for other areas, including agribusiness and renewable energy.
On the private sector, Mr Mahama said the government was working on the Ghana Private Sector Development Programme Phase II, while the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) was developing the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Charter.
Mr Mahama lauded the IPS for introducing Masters programmes and asked the graduands to carve a niche for themselves by being creative in the world of globalisation.
The Rector of IPS, Professor Joshua Alabi, said the institute continued to derive its budgetary support mainly from the government, in the form of payment of emoluments of staff and 'modest' funding for infrastructural development.
He said the IPS lacked the requisite infrastructure and appealed to the government to give priority attention to less-endowed universities like the IPS in the allocation of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).
Prof. Alabi said the IPS had introduced four Master’s degree programmes - MBA in Finance and Accounting, MBA in Auditing, Msc. in Global Leadership and Mphil. in Global Leadership, in line with its four-year strategic plan.
The institute admitted 3,746 students out of the 6,492 applications received this year and the total student population stands at 6,741.
The Chairman of the IPS Council, Mr Justice Nii Aryeetey, asked the government to increase the institute's subvention to reflect its current university status.
The Vice-President later inaugurated the School of Research and Graduate Studies of the IPS.
