University of Ghana

Founded in 1948 as ‘University College of the Gold Coast’ – an affiliated college of the University of London – the University of Ghana is now the oldest and largest of Ghana’s 10 public universities. Granted degree-awarding status in 1961, the university’s stated mission is to ‘create an enabling environment that makes University of Ghana increasingly relevant to national and global development through cutting-edge research as well as high quality teaching and learning.’ The university is run on a collegiate system and is divided into four colleges: the College of Basic and Applied Sciences, the College of Education, the College of Health Sciences, and the College of Humanities. Within the colleges are research institutions and centres that include the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIR), the Centre for Tropical, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the Regional Institute for Population Studies. Home to over 38,000 students, the university welcomes a growing number of international students, hailing from over 70 countries. Its faculty engage in work that aims to contribute to ‘policy-making for national development’.  With partnership agreements in place with universities in North America and Europe, as well as Africa, the university offers several programmes for student and staff exchange, and for collaborative research. It is also a member of numerous associations, including the Association of African Universities, the Norwegian Universities’ Committee for Development Research and Education, the Council for International Educational Exchange based in New York, the International Student Exchange Programmes and the Commonwealth Universities Student Exchange Consortium. It is also a member of the League of World Universities.  The university is primarily based in the Legon suburb of Accra, Ghana’s capital, with a teaching hospital and secondary campus in Accra itself. Its medical school is located in Korle Bu, southern Ghana with a graduate school of nuclear and allied sciences based at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (the University of Ghana is one of only a few universities in Africa that offers programmes in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering).