Dr. Adwoa Kwegyiriba is the first female substantive Principal of St. Francis College of Education.  She took over the administration of the College on 1st December, 2021.

Dr. Kwegyiriba is a professional teacher who holds the Teacher’s Certificate “A” from the Komenda College of Education in 1996. She also has a Bachelor of Education in Primary Education and a Master of Arts Degree in Development Studies, both from the University of Cape Coast.

Dr. Kwegyiriba’s passion for knowledge and interest in academia led her to pursue further studies abroad where she obtained her PhD in Economics and Management of Education at Huazhong University of Science & Technology (HUST) Graduate School of Education, Wuhan, China. Dr. Kwegyiriba is an astute researcher and has authored 46 publications in peer-reviewed journals and in the area of a logistics and transport, and higher education management, quality, access, and financing.

Dr. Kwegyiriba is the National Director of Research for Women in Technical Education, a  member of the Chartered Professional Administrators (ChPA) and a professional fellow of the Chartered Institute of Administrators and Management Consultants (CIAMC)-Ghana.

Until her appointment as the substantive principal, she worked in different capacities at Takoradi Technical University from 2008. She is an accomplished academic and university administrator with over fifteen years of experience in the field of higher education.

She was the Dean of the Centre for Languages and Liberal Studies (2020–2021). She also worked as an acting librarian (2019–2021). Her work at the Technical University was not only limited to managerial and administrative duties, but also academic roles. She was a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Languages and Liberal Studies, where she taught Research Methods at the undergraduate level. She also taught research methods at the postgraduate level for the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the Western Region sector (2018–2021).

Some of her students are deeply established in various prominent positions including current Deputy Director of Transport at the presidency, the Director of Logistics at the Ghana railways Authority, Director of Transport at TTU and the Director of Operations at Ports and Harbor (Takoradi). She has also mentored many lecturers and served as an external supervisor in many local and international universities. She mentored lecturers in publications across the department of hospitality, painting, languages, sculpture, tourism, fashion, and the library  who have now become senior lecturers at Takoradi Technical University.

Now some community services and notable achievements.

Dr. Kwegyiriba has risen through the ranks and has been at the forefront of providing academic leadership in relevant sections. She has been a management member, the acting librarian, the Dean of the Centre for Languages and Liberal Studies, and a senior lecturer at the Centre for Languages and Liberal Studies from 2013-2018. She also served as an Assistant Registrar Professor Pori the then Rector in the initial years of her service to Takoradi Polytechnic. During her tenure as Dean, she helped the university to enforce the study of Chinese language. She also championed and advocated for offices for the Law Studies, the Language Studies, and the Social Development Departments at the university. Over the years, Dr. Kwegyiriba secured sponsorship for breast and cervical cancer screening for the entire university community which has become an annual ritual.

In her position as the Ag. Librarian, the library signed up for the African Intellectual Development Database Excellence (AIDDE), which is a digital platform that tries to connect African university library resources together. She again signed the library up for the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH). She again instituted a research and publication seminar for the library, which trained lecturers on a weekly basis in research and publications.

For her selfless nature, she made a conscious effort to push two officers at the library to obtain their Master of Philosophy in order to replace her when her tenure was over. These officers had a mentorship from Dr. Kwegyiriba where she devoted herself to guiding them during their thesis work pro bono.

She has a great passion for mentoring, particularly the youth. She organized and facilitated several capacity-building training programs for women. This included her facilitation in DAAD National Workshop for Women in Science (March 2019), the National Workshop for Women in Technical Education and Development (WITED) at Koforidua (June 2018), and the National Workshop in TVET for Sustainable Development in Ghana, Koforidua, Ghana (June 2018).

Dr. Kwegyiriba has extensive experience from other professional engagements that are beneficial in higher educational transformation. She is an expert in project management and consultancy and has worked in different settings as far as projects and funding are concerned. She was project manager for Ghana Cities Missions and was responsible for writing project proposals and bidding for projects, coordinating project logistics and implementation. She was a project member for the skills development fund in 2016 and a member of the implementation team for skills development grant training on auto electronic diagnostics for 1,500 artisans in the Western Region, funded by the skills development fund (SDF), which was implemented by Takoradi Technical University and Ghana National Association of Garages (GNAG), Western Region.

During her PhD degree in China, Dr. Kwegyiriba’s professional expertise and leadership were highly recognized. She was chosen by the International Students Office to introduce English as a second language to some professors at HUST and was a lead member of a team that brokered a partnership in sponsorship between Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) China and the University for Development Studies (UDS) Ghana. This partnership gave UDS a yearly sponsorship of 5 lecturer for PhD in HUST and a full equipped Huawei computer laboratory. She was also the trainer for the foreign culture department supervisors at Mianyang Foreign Language School in Chengdu province. She also founded the Women of Wuhan (WOW) which a breakfast meeting every month where each member paid 25 Yuan extra to support needy children.

In addition, Dr. Kwegyiriba was the initiator and coordinator of the China-Africa Education Seminar, HUST (2010–2013). This seminar gave each African student member the platform to present research findings on one educational topic in their home country compared to that of China and sought sponsorship thereof.

Dr. Kwegyiriba is highly respected as a scholar, a teacher, a mentor, a lobbyist, and a philanthropist. In 2020-2021academic year, she paid the school fees of 53 students to help them access tertiary education in the community where she stayed and worked.

Her lobbying skills have yielded a positive transformation of higher institutions. She was a member of the Takoradi Technical University’s Fund-Raising Committee to convert the then Takoradi Polytechnic into a university in 2016.

Dr Kwegyiriba is a fearless woman in all aspects of life and has gained the nickname “Vim Mama”. The abbreviation V. I. M. is coined from the phrase “Vision In Motion.” She is a strong Christian from the Catholic faith and is married to Dr. Jojo Okyere with children.