The College of Distance Education will commence a top up in M. Phil and M. Com programmes from October 2017. This will therefore present opportunity to those who have obtained M. Ed and MBA degrees to enroll. Meanwhile, accreditation is also being sought to enable the College introduce M. Phil in IT Education to upgrade the existing M.Ed. IT programme. The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, disclosed this during the 5th session of the 49th congregation where a total of 1, 762 graduands who completed various programmes in the 2015/16 academic year through the distance mode were presented with diplomas and degrees. In all, a total of 10, 241 graduands from CoDE would be graduated over the three-day period of the congregation. The Vice-Chancellor noted that distance education opportunities for students were increasing at an exponential rate and has therefore widened access to tertiary education for a large number of qualified applicants who otherwise would not have had the opportunity of acquiring university education. Prof. Ampiah said Distance Education is flexible but does not compromise on quality and for that matter the College has put in place a lot of quality assurance measures in order to make distance learning enjoyable and effective as the regular system. “All the academic modules are currently being reviewed to make them more user friendly, after which they will be digitized and placed online for easy access by all learners,” he added. In order to enhance capacity and competence of facilitators of the College, Prof. Ampiah announced that a series of training programmes have been outlined for course tutors to keep them abreast of new ways of using the modules. According to the Vice-Chancellor, this was aimed at improving their efficiency in the delivery process and also make them more accustomed to modern ways of the increasing needs of a “matured group of students”. Prof. Ampiah said data on all fresh Distance Education students have been integrated into the main University data platform to provide each student a personal portal to enable them access their examination results and other information related to their academic work. He advised the graduands to persevere and pursue their dreams and guard against any form of complacency. “Focus on a goal and make full use of the many opportunities that may come your way”, he advised.