The university of Ghana, Legon has been ranked consistently as one of the best universities in Ghana, at the same time, KNUST has also had a similar ranking. This has sparked an age-old debate among Ghanaian students as to which of these top universities is the best.
Every student in Senior High School currently aiming to further their education in Ghana plans to study at a renowned university in Ghana. Many of these students would like to attend either the University of Ghana or Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
This article will critically analyze four major factors that distinguish these two universities. These factors will be infrastructure, cut-off points, international recognition, and location. Let’s dive into it!
- Infrastructure.
A university campus is a place full of memorable experiences and a sense of place. It is an environment that potentially creates a social and intellectual exchange of ideas and brings together diverse people.
The university of Ghana (UG) infrastructure is predominantly dependent on the Government of Ghana (GoG), through GETFund. The astronomical surge in student population in the last few years has put a lot of pressure on the university to upgrade the school’s infrastructure. The university of Ghana has four campuses: the Legon campus (main campus), the Korle-Bu campus, the Accra city campus, and the Distance education campus. The size of the University of Ghana campus and hostels is much larger than that of KNUST, as a result, the population of UG is more than the population of KNUST. The university of Ghana is Ghana’s biggest university whiles KNUST is the biggest in Ashanti region.
KNUST is approximately seven square miles in area with group of modernist architectural buildings such as the school of engineering building; a tropical modern architecture which maximizes natural lighting and ventilation, and the Great Hall; an iconic building designed with a modernist architectural style mixed with colourful paintings on walls and staircases and the Unity and African Hall; two modern architectural land-mark buildings.
UG campus on the other hand covers an area of 99.3 hectares and is characterized by tropical compound buildings and long horizontal buildings with a colonial architectural style with a majority of the buildings having a gable roof with distinctive red clay roofing tiles. The campus landscape creates a distinctive visual identity and harmonizes with the campus-built environment. The campus is also characterized by its unique sculpture which also reflects the Ghanaian African Culture.
One infrastructure worth noting is their libraries. KNUST’s main library is a four-story small-scale building, while UG’s library, the Balme library is the largest within the University of Ghana Library System (UGLS), endowed with information resources, IT infrastructure, expert staff, and is the biggest library in West Africa.
Not only are Legon residential halls expensive, but they are also convenient and there are 12 of them, unlike any other university in Ghana. KNUST halls of residence at the Kumasi campus are just six and can only accommodate only 40% of the student population and most times just in their first year. However, at UG, there is room for every student who wants on-campus residence and can afford it.
The conclusion here is that, both the KNUST campus and UG campus were designed by foreign architects and although KNUST has a very beautiful, well-layered, and aesthetically zoned campus, their campus cannot match up to the world-class architectural design of UG. Legon’s lecture halls, residences, schools, hospital, and other facilities are larger, more numerous, and more advanced than KNUST’s facilities.
2. Cut-off points.
Cut off point is the minimum aggregate a student who aims at studying at a school has to attain in order to be admitted. Each school has different cut-off points for the same course.
In UG, the lowest aggregate accepted is 7 for Bachelor of Science in medicine and surgery and the lowest aggregate is 24 for BSc. fine arts and BSc. family and child studies. For KNUST, the lowest aggregate accepted is 6 for Bachelor of Science in Medicine and the lowest aggregate is also 24 for BSc landscape design and management. When we compare the aggregates, KNUST is more demanding.
This means that getting admission into the university of Ghana is slightly easier than getting admission into KNUST for some courses. One might argue that this makes KNUST standards higher than Legon’s standards.
3. International recognition
Both schools have been recognized by foreign bodies. However, over the years, the university of Ghana has consistently been ranked as the best university in Ghana by several agencies including webometrics, edurank, Scimago institution rankings, etc. based on several factors including the university’s reputation, research performance, and alumni impact.
According to webometrics, the University of Ghana is ranked 1st in Ghana and 1109th in the world while the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology is ranked 2nd in Ghana and 1489th in the world. In their methodology, their ranking is based on citations by google scholar profiles whose citations are deemed authentic.
4. Location
The location of a university plays a major role in the college experience. For example, an urban university might offer you bigger business internship opportunities and easy access to modern facilities and entertainment although your expenditure may be higher. A university in a town on the other hand may offer you a quiet environment, and smaller expenditure as the cost of transportation and food may be cheaper, but access to state-of-the-art facilities and entertainment opportunities may be limited.
Located in Accra, the University of Ghana can boast of its presence in Ghana’s capital and administrative center. Again, residents of Accra believe they are connoisseurs of the elite. KNUST situated in Kumasi can boast of similar qualities that the Premier University has. As noted above, being in a university located in the city simply has more advantages generally.
The conclusion here being that the university of Ghana is in the city whereas KNUST is not, as such UG offers its student more experiences, entertainment, access to modern facilities and all the other advantages a big city offers.