The School of Graduate Studies at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has announced significant reforms aimed at improving postgraduate training and strengthening research output.
The Director of the School of Graduate Studies, Professor Michael Poku-Boansi, revealed this during the university’s 59th Congregation ceremony. He announced that the KNUST School of Law will graduate its first-ever cohort of PhD students
“The first cohort presents three candidates, including two males and one female. This marks nearly three decades after the school was established,” he said
Prof. Poku-Boansi also announced the introduction of the Doctoral Dialogue Series that allows doctoral candidates to share their research experiences through short video recordings. “
The 20-minute documentary will highlight the challenges, motivations and the impact of doctoral research on national and global development,” he said. The documentaries will initially be aired on TEK TV and the university’s social media pages, with plans to partner additional media houses.
To improve supervision quality, conflicts between students and supervisors will be reduced due to the introduction of a special training (workshop) to strengthen feedback from supervisor and students. He further stated that beginning the 2025/2026 academic year, the university’s online management system will enforce a maximum number of students per supervisor.
“No faculty member will be assigned students beyond the approved threshold,” he emphasized.
Professor Boansi also hinted that the Academic Board has approved a new requirement mandating postgraduate research students to publish before graduating. “From the next academic year, MPhil and Master’s students will be required to publish at least one reviewed paper or journal article, while doctoral students must publish a minimum of two , one journal article and one peer-reviewed conference paper”.
To support this, the School of Graduate Studies, together with the Office of Grants and Resources, will organize writing clinics to build the capacity of students. Prof. Poku-Boansi encouraged upcoming graduates to take advantage of the initiative.
On income generation from research output, he said the School has initiated processes to create a standard template to help students commercialize their research outputs with relevant stakeholders.
Also, as part of efforts to address long-standing cases, all postgraduate students who have overstayed the duration of their programmes have been granted amnesty up to the end of the 2025/2026 academic year. Students who fail to complete their programmes by that period will be deemed to have abandoned their studies and will be withdrawn, he cautioned.
This year, a total of 2,381 students are graduating with various postgraduate degrees. This comprises of 1,606 males, representing 67.45 % and 775 females representing 32.55 %.