The University of Cape Coast, UCC, has admitted a total of 17, 501 fresh students to pursue both undergraduate and post-graduate programmes by distance in various disciplines for the 2016/2017 academic year.
The figure comprises 16, 682 undergraduates and 819 postgraduate students. For the undergraduates, 12, 312 are pursuing education related programmes, while 4,370 are pursuing business related programmes. In terms of gender, the admission is made up of 9, 019 males representing 54.1 per cent and 7, 663 females which is approximately 45.9 per cent. The figures show an increase of 2.4 per cent over last year’s figure of 43.5 per cent.
Speaking at the matriculation ceremony for College of Distance Education (CoDE) students in the Western and Central Regions on UCC campus, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, expressed confidence that the high female ratio means that the achievement of a male to female ratio of 50:50 in distance education would be achieved in the foreseeable future.
He congratulated the women on their determination to pursue further studies and urged them to advise their colleagues to do same, adding “talk to your colleagues who are outside the fence to enroll in the programme because it is by this that you are empowered to perform your various roles expected of you.”
Prof. Ampiah also encouraged male counterparts and all husbands to support their women morally and financially to climb up the educational ladder so that the family in particular and society in general would benefit from the knowledge they have acquired.
The Vice-Chancellor gave the assurance that UCC would continue to improve upon its quality of distance education delivery. In that regard, he indicated that CoDE had embarked on a number of strategies to achieve the objective. He said series of training and re-training programmes had been designed for course tutors in all the Study Centres of the College.
The Vice-Chancellor also mentioned that training programmes had been outlined for permanent staff of the College in order to enhance their work and offer quality support services to numerous clientele. He said the Quality Assurance Unit of CoDE would continue to ensure that quality permeates in all aspects of the activities and programmes of the College.
Advising the fresh students, Prof. Ampiah said the distance education programme was quite different from the conventional programme where students devote most of their time to academic work. “You therefore need to strategise and manage the little time available to you effectively to derive maximum benefit,” he cautioned. He urged them to attend the face-to-face sessions regularly to enable them have deeper understanding of the courses they were pursuing.
The Registrar, Mr. John Kofi Nyan, administered the matriculation oath to the students.
Students from the Greater Accra and Volta Regions who were also admitted by CoDE had their matriculation ceremony at the Accra Study Centre, Papafio Hills in Accra. Fresh students in the Middle and Norther Zones of CoDE will have their matriculation ceremony concurrently in Kumasi and Tamale respectively on January 9, 2017.