Kwame Nkrumah University of Sciences and Technology : ISTIC students discover a model temple of knowledge
In the framework of their 2024 session educational trip to Ghana, graduating journalists, advisors and the engineers in techniques and technology of media from the 36th class of the Institute of Sciences and Techniques of Information and Communication (ISTIC) visited Kwame Nkrumah University of Sciences and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, the Ashanti region, on Wednesday, July 17.
A campus covering several hundred hectares of land opened its doors to that 36th class on the ground of the celebration of ISTIC’s fiftieth anniversary. At Kwame Nkrumah University of Sciences and Technology of Kumasi, the visitors of the day were introduced to “Katanga Hall” which is said to be the most famous one among the six buildings composing this temple of knowledge. About a thousand students are yearly accommodated in “Katanga Hall”.
According to sayings from Emmanuel Baah, the vice-president of the students living in this Hall, the denomination and the inspiration for this “stronghold” come, from the name of the Katanga province of Congo, which is famous for its historic resistance against the colonial master.
Since its creation in 1963, Katanga Hall is accommodating selected students from a wide range of scientific fields. As soon as the new comers are integrated in Katanga Hall, they undergo traditional rituals and values established by their predecessors. The result makes leaders who are ready to take up their peers’ demands for better living and studying conditions.
After this immersion, the students and the supervisors moved on to the faculty center. There, they came to discover the plurality and the diversity of the teaching fields they are providing. The last site they visited is Opoku Ware II Museum, bearing the name of the 15th king of the Ashanti people.
Built up to 3rd floor, The Opoku Ware II infrastructure comprises three galleries. In the first gallery, the visitors from ISTIC discovered the historical background of the university. The second gallery is said to be the shelter of the university’s archives, while the last one is showing pictures of the key moments in the lifetime of the university, mostly an exhibition about the upcoming celebration of its 70th anniversary.
Kwame Nkrumah University of Sciences and Technology is the largest University both in the Kumasi metropolis and in the Ashanti region. KNUST was founded in 1952 and it hosted up to eighty-five thousand students by 2023.
Among its former resident students we can quote personalities such as the former UN Secretary-General Koffi Annan, Ghana’s Vice-President who acted between 2001 and 2008, Aliu Mahama, and the former First Lady of Ghana, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings.
Assanatou BARO
Voro KORAHIRE
Romaine SAWADOGO
Jean Marie BAMOGO
Hassan NANG-OULDE Malloum