The University of Cape Coast through the Centre for Teaching Support (CTS) and the Institutional Affiliation office (IAO) has organised a five-day training workshop on Assessment and Research for academic staff of the College of Health and Well-Being, Kintampo and the Department of Nursing, Methodist University College, Wenchi campus.  

The training programme which would be replicated in all institutions affiliated to UCC is aimed at building the professional competencies of academic staff to provide quality services of the highest standard. Opening the five-day programme, the Director of CTS, Prof. Douglas D. Agyei, said the workshop was aimed at building the tutors to adopt best practices in assessing their students; supervising students’ research and writing and publishing articles. He said as the mentor of over 52 private and public training institutions in Ghana, UCC has rolled out these series of capacity building workshops to strengthen quality academic work in all its affiliate institutions. Prof. Agyei said UCC’s focus was to groom each affiliate institution to become independent in the near future. “There’s no mentoring institution whose focus is to be a mentor for its whole life. Our hope is that one day this mentoring relationship will come to an end. This means you should be in a position to stand on your own and mentor others once it has ended,” he stressed.  The Director of CTS reiterated UCC’s commitment to the holistic development of affiliate institutions, saying “We want to ensure that all the institutions UCC is mentoring will develop quality wise but should be ready to be on their own and mentor others; the immediate effect is to ensure quality in output and in the long term have an institution that will stand on its own”. Speaking about the importance of the workshop, Prof. Agyei said “the Vice-Chancellor as well as the management of UCC and the Committee of Institutional Affiliation have key interests in the workshop”. He assured that UCC would not renege on its commitment to help uplift affiliate institutions as quality institutions of learning in Ghana and beyond.   In his remark at the opening ceremony, the Head of the Institutional Affiliation Office, Mr. Justice Agyenim Boateng, explained that the workshop would help address the misunderstanding and confrontations that occasionally ensue between UCC assessors and lecturers or tutors of the various affiliate institutions during pre and post moderation exercises. He noted that a similar workshop has already been organized for over 180 lecturers and professors who have been visiting affiliate institutions for moderation.  He indicated that through the workshop, certain standards have been developed to guide moderation exercises in affiliate institutions. “This workshop is to help us work together to streamline the moderation exercise and also ensure that we do quality work,” he added. The Principal of the College, Mr. Solomon S. Allotey, commended UCC for organizing such an important training programme for tutors of the College. He was optimistic that the training programme would help them improve on their work and also develop them professionally in their academic career. He expressed gratitude to the team from UCC and also thanked Mr. Boateng for coordinating the workshop. The facilitators for the workshop included, Prof. Agyei, Dr. Samuel Essien-Baidoo, Dr. Eric Anane and Dr. Isaac Buabeng. Prof. Agyei and Dr. Essien-Baidoo took the tutors through Research Methodologies and Effective Project Work Supervision & Writing and Publishing Articles while Dr.  Anane discussed with them types of Assessment, Learning Outcomes/Blooms Taxonomy of Cognitive Learning, Table of Specification and Objective Type Item Construction.  Dr. Buabeng, on the other hand made presentation on the Construction of Essay Type Questions. The workshop recorded 96 participants from College of Health and Well-Being and 4 tutors from the Department of Nursing, Methodist University College, Wenchi Campus. Some of the participants who spoke during the evaluation of the workshop commended UCC for organizing such an important workshop. They also thanked the facilitators for engaging them through practical sessions and requested for regular training programmes that would enhance their skills and develop their academic career. Formerly known as Kintampo Rural Health Training School (KRHTS), the College was established by the Ministry of Health in 1969. The College which is the first of its kind in Ghana trains middle-level health professionals in the field of community medicine and Clinical Psychiatry and Community Mental Health at the bachelor and diploma levels.