The Vice- Provost of the University of Cincinnati (UC), United States of America (USA), Prof. Raj Mehta, has reaffirmed the commitment of his University to strengthen academic ties with the University of Cape Coast (UCC).

He said the University of Cincinnati, which is 200 years old, would partner UCC in the areas of joint research, proposals and, exchange of lecturers and students programmes.

Prof. Mehta was speaking during a courtesy call on the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, as part of a day’s reciprocal visit to the University.

In 2017, a delegation from UCC visited the University of Cincinnati to acquaint themselves with the academic programmes of UC, which included Pharmacy.

Prof. Mehta assured the Vice-Chancellor that his University would help the College of Health and Allied Sciences to develop Pharmacy programme to enable the College to train more students to help improve the health sector of the country.

For his part, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah expressed gratitude to Prof. Raj Mehta and his accompanying delegation for the visit.

He added that the University cherished the collaboration with the University of Cincinnati and hoped that the partnership would in the long run benefit the two institutions.

The Registrar, Mr. J.K. Nyan; the Provost of the College of Health and Allied Sciences, Prof. Johnson Boampong; the Dean of the Center for International Education (CIE), Prof. Rosemond Boohene; and the Junior Assistant Registrar at CIE, Mr. Alfred Ghartey, were present during the meeting.

Fresh students of Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Nursing School at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, have been urged to stand out as specialised nurses with the requisite knowledge and skills to contribute towards enhancing quality health care delivery in the country.

The Head of Institutional Affiliation Office (IAO), Mr. Justice Agyenim Boateng, gave the advice when he addressed fresh students at an orientation programme at the School. He noted that they would be expected to exhibit high level of professionalism in their duties to justify the training they had received. “Your superiors will not pardon you if you disappoint them after your two year training as specialist in Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT)” he admonished.

Mr. Boateng said that the Ministry of Health granted them study leave to pursue the top-up degree in ENT in order to contribute towards the provision of quality healthcare. He reminded them that the degree they would receive at the end of their training qualified them to work at the level of management in most of the health facilities in Ghana, and therefore, they should be adequately prepared to meet expectations at that level.

On academics, Mr. Boateng told the students that at the end of their studies, they would be awarded a UCC certificate because of ENT Nursing School’s relationship as an affiliate of UCC. “UCC stands for quality, so you are supposed to study well before being awarded UCC certificate,” he cautioned.

The Principal of the ENT Nursing School, Alhaji Abdul Rahaman Shaban, entreated the fresh students to be time conscious, disciplined, study well, attend lectures and practical sessions to enable them graduate with pride as specialists. He expressed gratitude to UCC especially, IAO for providing good mentorship to the School.

Mr. Boateng and Alhaji Shaban later visited some of the lecture rooms where final year students of the School were writing a quiz.

The ENT Nursing School, Kumasi, is a specialised nursing school established by the Ministry of Health in 2002. The School, one of the most esteemed Post Basic Nursing Training Institution is among a few in West Africa that runs a top-up degree programme awarded by UCC.

The Project Manager of the USAID/UCC Fisheries and Coastal Management Capacity Building Support Project, Prof. Denis W. Aheto, has said fish is the most widely traded agricultural commodity in the world as compared to other products in the agricultural value chain. “It is extremely important to put on record that fish, over the last couple of years, is the most heavily traded agricultural commodity compared to meat sources, tobacco, tea, cocoa, banana, sugar, among others”, he said.  The Project Manager, said funding from Overseas Development Aid (ODAs) for  fisheries research and productivity in fisheries value chain had declined over the last five years (2010 - 2015) and needed to be improved to complement the increasing funding support for other agricultural local outputs. . Prof. Aheto was addressing a delegation from USAID-Ghana, led by its new Mission Director, Ms.Sharon Cromer, at a workshop as part of her day’s visit to see at first-hand the progress of the Project in the University. Over the last five years, he said, funding for fisheries had declined by 30 % in favour of agricultural food products and forestry.  He continued: “Over the same period, funding volumes have seen a dramatic declined when it comes to fishery research, in particular”. Touching on the Fisheries sector in Ghana, Prof. Aheto said the total fish production of the country was about 400,000 metric tones and added that it was highly inadequate, compelling the government to import fish into the country. He revealed that in 2010, fish import reached 108 million Dollars, thus making it difficult for the country to achieve stability in its foreign income reserve. He added that “fish provides 60% of Ghana’s animal protein requirements and also contributes 4.5 % to GDP”. The Project Manager, who is also the Director of the Center for Coastal Management, UCC, enumerated over exploitation of fish resources, large scale poaching by foreign vessels, large amount of foreign exchange required to import fish to supplement domestic production as some of the challenges facing the fishery sector. On USAID’S Technical and Financial Assistance to the Project in UCC, Prof. Aheto said USAID/Ghana had committed 5.5 million Dollars to the project, with the University contributing 1.8 million Dollars in kind, namely: time, space, electricity, water, material resources, among others. He catalogued some of the difficulties the Centre for Coastal Management (CCT) was facing within and outside the University, including slow pace of physical works, sourcing and procurement, understaffing, depreciation of the cedi and bureaucratic system in boat registration.   He took the participants through an online platform meant to provide scientific information to support policy making in the fishing sector, FishCom Ghana , and some capacity building programmes the CCM had undertaken for the public, including security agencies, journalists, academia, students, government officials, among others. Making a contribution, a former Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kobina Yankson, called for support for government’s policy of building a Ghana beyond Aid. “So as a nation our goal is to be developing to the point that we will be on our own” adding that, “Our president calling on us to develop beyond aid is a good call”.  He called for strong consideration of capacity building elements in foreign aid which as a consequence would build the human resource base so as to move local projects beyond aid.        

Four affiliate institutions of the University of Cape Coast have participated in a workshop organised by the Institutional Affiliation Office (IAO) and the Centre for Teaching Support (CTS).

The workshop which is the third in a series for UCC affiliate institutions was held concurrently in Kumasi and Yendi. It was aimed at building the capacities of lecturers in the four affiliate institutions on assessment and research.

In Kumasi, lecturers of the Ghana Baptist University College (GBUC) and Spiritan University College (SUC) participated in the workshop whiles tutors of Yendi College of Health Sciences, and Animal Health and Production College, Pong-Tamale took part in that of Yendi.

Topics treated during the four-day workshop were “Types of Assessment (Feedback Mechanisms)”; “Multiple Choice Items”; “Research Methodology”; “Effective Project Work Supervision” and “Learning Outcomes/Blooms Taxonomy of Cognitive Learning”. Others were “Table of Specification (TOS)”; “Essay Type Questions and “Preparation of Marking Schemes and Rubrics”, and “Preparation of Course Outline.”

Facilitators for the Kumasi workshop were Prof. Douglas D. Agyei, Dr. Kofi Acheaw Owusu and Dr. Christopher Y. Kwaah whereas Dr. Samuel Essien-Baidoo, Dr. Isaac Buabeng and Dr. Godwin K. Aboagye led presentations in Yendi.  

Opening the workshop in Kumasi, the Director of CTS, Prof. Douglas D. Agyei, said the facilitators would not impose their knowledge on the lecturers but engage them on new trends in assessment and research. He noted that feedback from the previous training programmes indicated that the workshop was very beneficial stressing that “Most of your colleagues from other institutions who participated in the last two workshops were really happy for the depth of knowledge they had acquired which they said will help them to improve on their teaching skills, setting of examinations, designing course outline and supervising students research work.” 

He indicated that through the workshop, the facilitators had also gained a lot of experience from the rich contributions of participants. He urged the participants to cooperate with the facilitators to share experiences and knowledge in the topics to be treated during the four day workshop.

Addressing participants at Yendi, Dr. Essien-Baidoo underscored the importance of the workshop and indicated UCC’s commitment to provide the best mentorship to its affiliate institutions so that they would also be recognized as quality tertiary institutions in Ghana and beyond.  He said “UCC is known for its quality of training and so any institution which is being mentored by UCC should also be recognized as such.”

The Head of IAO, Mr. Justice Agyenim Boateng, who was present at the opening ceremony in Kumasi and later visited Yendi, noted that the workshop was one of the responsibilities of UCC as the mentoring institution. “The Memorandum of Understanding UCC signed with the affiliate institutions mandates UCC to perform certain responsibilities which include building the capacity of staff in affiliate institutions” he elaborated.

At the end of the workshop, the participants called on UCC to regularly organise such workshops to enhance their skills and help them build a successful career in academia.