UCC Will Continue to Make Quality Graduate Education a Priority- Prof. Ampiah

“As management, we are set on a mission to make UCC synonymous with higher quality graduate education in the country and beyond”. The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah stated this during the 12th Session of the 49th Congregation for the School of Graduate Studies. A total of 2,214 students were presented with various postgraduate degrees, which included 51 Ph.Ds. Addressing the graduands, the Chancellor of UCC, Sir Dr. Sam Esson Jonah said the School of Graduate Studies continues to enhance the intellectual life of the University by enabling graduate professional students to undertake scholarly study and advanced research and to prepare them for professional work. “It is my conviction that the School of Graduate Studies will continue to foster a conducive environment that enables critical, curious, creative, and courageous thinkers, who work both independently and collaboratively, to find answers to significant development challenges confronting the nation.” Dr. Jonah called on the School to be guided by the core values of integrity, dependability, creativity, and innovation and work even harder to position graduate education more centrally and visibly within the University. The Chancellor said, for tertiary institutions to successfully fulfill their functions in the 21st century, they needed to respond effectively to changing needs and trends in education as well as changing information and communication technologies. He told the graduands that more innovative ways of doing business were emerging, and therefore, they should endeavour to be among the “21st century think tanks who engineer such progress”. He reminded them that the University has empowered them with generic and discipline-specific research knowledge and skills, employment-related skills and competencies and were expected to impart positively on their respective communities. “I would also like to recommend that you consider the agriculture sector as you think of establishing yourselves. It is one area Ghanaians have failed to invest into on full scale”, Dr. Jonah emphasised. Presenting his address, the Vice-Chancellor said the school has over the years and in 2015/16 in particular, sought to ensure relevance of graduate programmes to socio-economic and technology development in Ghana and the West African sub-region. “Improved graduate programmes and policies as well as facilities for more effective teaching, research and community engagement have been our stock-in-trade to transform significantly our knowledge base, curricula and mode of delivery”, he stated. The Vice-Chancellor reported that enrollment saw a slight expansion and included students from the sub-region adding “A curious feature of the total enrollment was a shift in numbers from our regular mode to sandwich and distance modes. This signal the need to reposition ourselves as a University to meet the shift in demand for graduate education”. Prof. Ampiah said the impressive statistics of postgraduates presented, reflected hard work and diligence on the part of faculty, students and supporting staff. He announced that work was progressing sturdily on the construction of the new School of Graduate Studies Building and indicated that it would solve the problem of inadequate office space for staff and also provide the needed environment for graduate students upon its completion. The ceremony also witnessed the presentation of awards to deserving graduands and their supervisors. Among the graduates who received award for outstanding research were Dr. Jerry Opoku-Ansah-Ph.D (Physics), Prof. Eric Mensah-Ph.D (Curriculum and Teaching), Dr. Sebastian Eliason-Ph. D (Population and Health) and Dr. Emmanuel Kwasi Abu-Ph. D (Parasitology). The following supervisors; Prof. Joseph K. Mintah, Rev. Prof. Seth Asare-Danso, Prof. Akwasi Kumi-Kyereme and Prof. Kofi Awusabo-Asare were honoured. Others were Prof. Moses Jojo Eghan, Prof. Johnson Nyarko Boampong and Dr. Irene Ayi. Two hardworking staff of the School of Graduate Studies, Mrs. Gifty Dzansi and Mr. Kwesi Anhwere were also honoured at the ceremony.