Artificial Neural Network (Ann) Forecast of University Growth: A Focus on College of Technology Education, Kumasi, University of Education, Winneba Admissions

Abstract

The definition of growth can mention the nature that growth can be taken: Physical and Abstract. The growth of Academic institutions, especially Universities, has become a major concern in Ghana. The growth of Academic institutions (Universities and Colleges) can take different dimensions. Some of these dimensions include the number of undergraduate admissions per year, number of postgraduate admissions per year, Number of Teaching Staff, infrastructure, logistics, and Research. In the Corporate strategic plan of University of Education (2015), the targets enshrined in it indicate that the University of Education would pursue non-reluctant growth strategy in all spheres of academic life including infrastructure growth, increase in enrollment of students and continuous pursuant of higher academic research. A focus is made on the admissions of College of Technology Education, Kumasi, one of the University's campuses. This admission growth of the college is used as a proxy for the entire University of Education, Winneba. The Neural Autoregressive (NAR) model is specified based on the Autoregressive (AR) five (5) in terms of the lag length and variables used. The AR had mean forecast error of 22.58% whiles the NAR had a mean forecast error of 5.89%. It is self-evident from the results that the College of Technology Education, Kumasi is growing in terms of students numbers. This therefore, suggests that quick measures are needed to meet the increasing students  population. Future studies should be done on Faculty basis.