A non-governmental organisation, Nation Builders, has launched a project dubbed " Help a Child Read " at the Archbishop Amissah Memorial School at Duakor, a fishing community near the University. 

The project is aimed at inculcating the culture of reading into school children to improve learning outcomes. As part of the launch, Nation Builders donated assorted reading books to the school.  Nation Builders, established by some undergraduate and M.Phil students of the University of Cape Coast, is also expected to expand the project across schools in the Central region.

 The Pro- Vice-Chancellor, Prof. George K. T. Oduro, who launched the project, commended the Nation Builders for the unique initiative and called on  stakeholders to give support to the project to achieve its aim. Touching on the philosophy underlying  Nation Builder's activities, he said, " there is one thing I find and that is "Changing the Mindset of Ghanaians".

 According to him, Ghanaians had developed a mindset of self-centeredness, sectionalism, tribalism and  partisanship, and asked Ghanaians to do away with such negative tendencies. Rather, he called  on Ghanaians to have a positive mindset towards the nation by exuding the values of  patriotism,selflessness,voluteerism and nationalism.

 Prof. Oduro noted that the spirit of volunteerism among Ghanaians, especially the youth, was gradually dying. He advised that" If the school system can help reactivate this spirit of volunteerism among our younger ones then reading becomes a crucial thing we need to invest in." “Without reading, children would find it extremely difficult to read and understand the issues the media project on television”, he emphasized.

Prof. Oduro stressed that reading was critical to national development irrespective of the job or profession. He said children must be encouraged to read books to enable them to build  themselves morally, spiritually, physically,socially and mentally towards nation building.


The Pro- Vice-Chancellor said:” Children should read books that would help them develop spirit of cohesion, co-existence and volunteerism. He advised parents to discourage their children from indulging in acts that were inimical to the development of the nation, especially "things that are divisive by nature".

 The patron of Nation Builders, Mr. Stephen Doh fia,  in a remark, said reading was one of the habits of serious students, hence the huge investment by education stakeholders. He called on the public to support the reading agenda, noting that " education experts have said that, there is a strong correlation between reading and academic performance”. He advised parents, teachers and other stakeholders in education " to encourage and guide children to read, doing this will help our country to grow and develop."

 The Headmaster of the School, Mr. Justin Ekor, thanked  Nation Builders for the gesture. He assured the leadership of Nation Builders that the books would be put to good use to enable the pupils to read wide. He appealed to benevolent individuals and organizations to come to the aid of the school to put up an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Center.

Hardworking pupils of the school were awarded for their academic performance. The pupils also entertained the audience with poetry recitals.

The Dean of Academic Affairs of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Prof. Vladimir Antwi-Danso, has noted that African countries could attain the vision of integration amongst themselves by utilizing opportunities such as political union, economic union, common market, customs union and free trade.

He mentioned bad governance, lack of trait transformational leaders, high dependence of Africa Union on European countries for funding, instability, and many others, as some of the factors that have contributed to the economic woes of the African continent.
 
Delivering a public lecture on the theme, “New Opportunities for Economic Integration in Africa in the Era of Ultra-Nationalist Movements in Europe and North America”, Prof. Antwi-Danso observed that global nationalism was as a result of unresolved colonial mistakes, post-cold war realities, failure of multi-culturalism, political economy of integration and the cost of multilateralism and rise in unilateralism.

He touched on global disintegration and the burning desire for some cities to secede from countries, citing several examples to back his argument, including Catalonia to secede from Spain, Scotland from the United Kingdom, California from the US, Hong Kong from China, amongst others. He added that “the intensification for such desires in the 21st century has little to do with geo-politics and much more to do with what Dani Rodrick has termed the ‘Trilemmas of Globalization”.
 
Prof. Antwi-Danso averred that “the failure of Global liberalism, spiced with the hiccups in Global governance and exacerbated by failures of the integration is to be blamed for the current situation”. He said Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Boko Haram were the two terrorist organisations which occupy 60% of the world casualties.
According to him, Boko Haram was one of the dangerous terrorist group in the world. Giving statistics obtained in 2014, he revealed that the number of attacks by Boko Haram was 453, resulting in 6,634 deaths and 1,742 injuries. On ISIS, he disclosed that the number of atrocities was 1,071 out of which 6,073 deaths were recorded. He also revealed that had it not been the timely intervention of his outfit, some three Ghanaian young ladies would have joined ISIS. “About a month ago, my outfit had to halt some three girls in Bawku who were going to work for ISIS,” he said.
 
Prof. Antwi-Danso said terrorist organizations doled out a lot of money to their recruits, disclosing that even a cook earns about $ 250 a day and those at the war front earn around $ 640 a day. He singled out Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, as the only head of state with trait of transformational leader who had turned the fortunes of his country. He, therefore, called on other African leaders to emulate the Rwandan leader.

The lecture was chaired by Dr. (Lawyer) K. Addo Tuffour, a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS).
 

A lecturer at the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Albert Ofori, has proposed to tertiary institutions to consider introducing Computational Chemistry as a degree programme to assist in solving chemical problems.

According to him, the old ways of solving chemical problems at laboratories was not  the best and, therefore, computational chemistry would help students with the tools to interpret experiments and understand chemical mechanism to make predictions that would guide future experiments. He said such a course would enable students apply existing computer programs and methodologies to specific chemical questions.

Dr. Ofori said this while delivering a lecture on the topic “Inter-and Intramolecular Interactions in the Stabilization of Metal Complexes: Computational Studies.” The lecture was organised by the School of Physical Sciences as part of its monthly lecture series.

He indicated that through computational chemistry, pharmaceutical industry, for instance, should be able to produce drugs that would heal exact medical conditions considering the gravity of a patient's  health. He further explained that “ for example, the computational chemistry can now define these problems in the pharmaceutical world and now they are developing drugs to target the broken tissues instead of having a combined medicine.... "

He said the introduction of Computation Chemistry would help faculty members to be innovative at the laboratory through the use of computers.

In another development, some past students of the Department of Physics in Finland have donated a 3D Printer to the Department.

The donation was a follow up to an earlier promise made by the past students by the Head of the group, Mr. Kofi J. Brobbey who also delivered a lecture in May 2017.

The Head of the Department, Dr. Benjamin Anderson, who presented the equipment on behalf of the students, thanked the past students for the donation.  He called on other old students to support the Department in their own little way, adding that “ the Department would appreciate it very much”.

On his part, the Vice-Dean of the School of Physical Sciences, Prof. Rulphino Zugle, who received the item, expressed gratitude to the old students and assured them that the equipment would be put to good use so as to prolong its lifespan.

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Prof. George K. T. Oduro, has noted that community schools has a role to play in nurturing  future leaders for sustainable development by  developing in younger ones the spirit of nationalism that will make them internalize the values embedded in the nation’s motto of “Freedom and Justice”. Prof. Oduro said Ghana needed a type of leadership that would create opportunities for all citizens to enjoy freedom in job acquisition and career pursuit without political, religious or tribal discrimination, freedom to express constructive views on national initiatives and not being unnecessarily tagged on politically motivated attacks. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor made these statements when he delivered a speech on “ Nurturing Future Leaders for Sustainable Development: The Role of the Community Senior High School “ at the25th Anniversary Celebration of Odoben Senior High School in the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District  of the Central Region.  Prof. Oduro said the time had come for Ghana to have a new type of leadership that would allow structures in organisations to function without unnecessary interferences driven by partisan interests.  He therefore, underscored the need for community senior high schools to nurture young ones who would place Ghana first above all partisan interests. As an agency for socialization, Prof. Oduro said there was no doubt that the school has a crucial role to perform in nurturing young ones towards the sustenance of Ghana’s development.  He added that considering the current complex challenges facing the nation vis-à-vis obligations posed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)  which among other things, oblige governments to expand access to quality education and health facilities within the context of equity,  it was clear that the nation need a  paradigm shift in leadership practices at all sectors of the economy.