The University of Mines and Technology is located at Tarkwa in the Western Region of Ghana. It is one of the new public universities in the country. The university came into being on 1 October 2001 when the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Mines was elevated to university college status. The faculty is the only such one in the West Africa sub-region for training high-level personnel in the mineral industry and continues to attract students from countries in the sub-region. Its four departments have existed under the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology since 1982.