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Quality
not the number of graduates that matter - Baiden-Amissah
Cape Coast, Oct 19, GNA - Mrs Angelina Baiden-Amissah, a
Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Sports, on Friday
said it was not the number of graduates the universities
turn out that mattered but the quality and calibre of such
graduates and their ability to influence the development
agenda positively.
She said it was for this reason that her ministry continued
to be concerned with efforts at improving education
facilities and resources for achieving goals and objectives
of higher education in Ghana, specifically university
education.
Mrs Baiden-Amissah, was addressing 'first session' of the
38th annual congregation of the UCC at which 2,420
grandaunts from the Centre for Continuing Education, Faculty
of Arts, School of Agriculture and its affiliate Kwadaso
Agricultural College and the African Virtual University (AVU),
were presented with degrees, diplomas and certificates.
Mr Ernest Jackson-Kuofie won the prize for the overall best
science student, with a score of 3.9 of the Grade Point
Average (GPA) of four.
In all 13 obtained first class, 121, second class upper,
172, second class lower, 58, third class and three passes.
The deputy minister expressed the hope that in its quest to
meet the demands of the job market, the UCC would not
sacrifice quality and lauded the university's efforts to
maintain high academic standards.
She lauded the UCC's strides in introducing programmes and
courses geared towards meeting the needs of the job market
and pledged her ministry's support for the UCC's School of
Medical Sciences to ensure that the shortfall in the
training of medical and dental personnel was remedied to
facilitate improved health care.
Mrs Baiden-Amissah said the ministry was satisfied with the
university's efforts to provide higher education for
teachers and other workers through distance education and
sandwich programmes.
She reiterated the call on graduates not to go out in search
of greener pastures but to stay at home and use their
knowledge for the benefit of society and to complement their
academic achievements with positive character traits.
The Vice-Chancellor, Reverend Professor Emmanuel Adow Obeng,
said the UCC's distance education programme had now "taken
on an international dimension" and was on the verge of being
adopted by a University in Cameroon.
He said 21,000 students, 40 per cent of them women, are
undertaking the programme and four zonal centres have been
set up at Bolgatanga, Kumasi, Tema and Takoradi to cater for
students there and in the remaining near-by regions.
Rev Prof Obeng said with the establishment of these centres,
students would no longer have to travel to the UCC for the
redress of their problems and that the remaining six regions
would have resident tutors by 2010 to increase managerial
efficiency in distance education programmes.
He said sites have also been acquired in seven of the 10
regions to build permanent study centres and that
construction work on the first phase of the project will
soon begin.
The sites will in future be made campuses of the UCC to run
some of the campus-based programmes.
Rev Prof Obeng said the School of Agriculture is to set up a
modern technology and research farm to enhance the growth of
the country's agricultural sector.
It is in the process of acquiring a 150-hectare plot of land
for the project.
It has, within the past 10 years, provided assistance to
more than 120,000 farmers with innovative approaches to
problem solving under its Supervised Enterprise Projects (SEPs),
Rev. Prof Obeng said it has also introduced new programmes
at both the undergraduate and post graduate levels.
These are programmes in Animal Health, Biotechnology and
Genetics and Seed Science and Technology.
The Chancellor of the UCC, Mr Sam Jonah, said he was happy
that in spite of constraints, the UCC had been steadfast in
its quest to develop as an "international force to reckon
with" in teaching, research and service.
He said these positive developments were attributable in a
large measure, to the generally peaceful atmosphere on
campus and expressed the hope that there would be continued
cooperation between staff and students.
GNA
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