A ceremony has been held to inaugurate the Confucius Institute at  the University of Cape Coast.   The inauguration of the centre is the second of such facility to be set up in the country after one at the University of Ghana, Legon.   The Confucius Institute programme was founded in 2004 with the central purpose to promote Chinese language and culture worldwide to promote what is referred to as the Chinese soft power. Such centres are always located within an academic environment and are always set up as joint ventures between a Chinese university and a host university. In this instance, it is between the University of Cape Coast and Hunan City University.   Welcoming guests to the programme, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. D. D. Kuupole said the institute has come to enlarge and enrich the arena of intellectual debate.  Explaining further, he said the Institute would become beneficial to Ghanaians if it was seen as an agent of engagement with our own culture, even as we engage with the Chinese. “The lesson I am trying to point out here is that, the Confucius Institute at UCC is a positive addition to our stock, an enriching overture in the congenial dialogue among cultures”, said.   According to Prof. Kuupole, the Institute has come as China’s gift to Ghana as an invitation to strengthen relations with Africa’s biggest trading partner. “It offers us the opportunity of seeing a new way to build cultural capital in consonance with our traditions and aspirations’, he added.   The Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, Her Excellency Su Baohong expressed gratitude to all stakeholders who contributed in diverse ways to make the Confucius institute on UCC campus a reality. She revealed that Chinese values are measured in Confucianism and it was passed on from generation to generation. “The Chinese people have always been peace-loving,  “We have a culture of peace and harmony which is at the core of Confucianism”, she explained. Her Excellency Su Baohong, said the path chosen by the Chinese people was different from the colonial expansion rather, it was a win-win cooperation with the rest of the world.She pledged her country’s continued support for the centre to blossom into one of the vibrant Institutes across the world.   Ghana’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare, in her speech, mentioned that since the re-alignment of the ministry in 2013 their strategy has been to brand the country with its rich and diverse culture. It was for that reason that the ministry has launched the “Explore Ghana” initiative with the aim to promote Ghana to indigenes as well as international tourists.   Mrs. Ofosu-Agyare said the role that Confucius played in the development of China is a testimony for all who were familiar with that country’s history, and therefore the establishment of the centre on campus would serve as a bridge for linguistic and cultural exchanges as well as cooperation in many fields between China and the rest of the world.   Prof. D D. Kuupole and Prof. Li Jian Qi signed an implementation agreement between UCC and Hunan City University on behalf of their respective institutions. Later, Ambassador Su Baohong and Prof. D. D. Kuupole unveiled a plaque to officially inaugurate the Confucius Institute at University of Cape Coast.    

A three-day international conference has been held at the University of Cape Coast with a call on participants to come up with policy-oriented decisions that will improve on the lives of the people.

The three-day conference has experts from Ghana, South Africa and Uganda speak to the theme “Public Private Partnership in the Power Sector in Ghana: Genuine Development Agenda or New Business Deal?

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Provost of the College of Humanities and Legal Studies, UCC, Prof. S. B. Kendie indicated that market-led reforms have been the driving force of the development agenda for countries implementing economic reforms under the guidance of the International Financial Institutions, and in Ghana this has been going on since 1983.

“We have witnessed labour rationalization and retrenchment and wage freeze in several such countries accompanied in several instances by labour agitations and strikes and subsequent informalization of economies”. “The growing informal economy is characterized by low wages and poor working conditions. Many remain outside the tax net, which affect public revenue generation”.

Prof. Kendie said removal of subsidies and imposition of user fees may have freed the national budget of some expenditure but these have also had some negative implications for the poor. Even though Prof. Kendie conceded that the tax net needed to be widened, he said the growing costs of energy and high interest rates were affecting the growth of business, which affects employment generation.

The Director of Institute of Development Studies, Prof. P. K. Agbesinyale said attempts to reform public sectors are sweeping across Africa, but the attempts were generally different from those of the immediate post-independence period.

Prof. Agbesinyale indicated that whereas the earlier reforms aimed at shaping public administration that could spearhead national development, the current reforms aimed at reducing costs and refocus the activities of the public sector, to change the way it works, and to promote the role of the market and the private sector both in the service provision and the economy at large.

Keynote speaker, Dr. Gerard Kesterintimated that democracy could be seen in a double perspective. “It is not a procedure mediating between different political ideologies but is also itself an ideology”.

He said the foundations of democracy has to guarantee the basic values of democratic society adding that that it should establish the primacy of individual freedoms.

Dr. Kester said democracy has to be re-invented in a much richer and specific way than opening ballot boxes once in a not to frequent while, rather if democracy was to regain control over globalized financial capitalism, it should invent new instruments, not just those of the market, and not just parliaments and other formal democratic institutions. “One of the most important issues in the coming years will be the development of new forms of property and control of capital. New forms of participation and governance have to be invented”, he declared.

Turning to democracy and controlled enterprise, the keynote speaker was noted that labour-capital -relations should be linked to the core values of freedom, equality, equivalence and solidarity.

He averred that in the neoliberalism regime, owners do as they please but employees and other stakeholders also belong to entreprise. “Democracy cannot be banned from a place where many people spend a big part of their life and which determines part of their life outside the enterprise”, he said.

The Vice Chancellor, Prof. D. D. Kuupole chaired the opening ceremony.

The Centre of Teaching Support (CTS) has organised a three-day comprehensive training programme for newly appointed Lecturers/Assistant Lecturers and Part Time Lecturers of the College of Education Studies.

The training programme was aimed at enhancing the professional development of the teaching staff by providing them opportunities to a range of andragogic approaches and new trends to support the teaching of courses including the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

In an interview with the Director of CTS, Dr. Douglas D. Agyei said the programme would help participants to develop hands-on capacity building skills in the preparation and use of course outlines during their first contact with students. He indicated that participants would be engaged in adopting effective ways of evaluating students’ progress and providing students’ feedbacks of their performances. In addition, the participants would explore different instructional strategies & basic techniques of teaching large classes for optimal learning as well as the use of ICT tools to promote interactive learning, discussion and thinking in teaching in large classes.

The resource persons for the programme were Prof. J. Ghartey-Ampiah, Prof. Eric M. Wilmot, and Dr. D. D. Agyei.

Prof.  Ghartey-Ampiah took the participants through “Effective First Day/Week in Class and    Strategies for Assessment and Feedback,” whilst Prof. Eric M. Wilmot made a presentation on “Multiple Choice Items and Essay Type Questions”.

Dr. Douglas D. Agyei handled “Teaching Large Classes and    Application of ICT   in Large Classes”. He also led participants to explore the topic of “Presentation Application as a Productivity Tool.

The participants indicated that the sessions were very insightful and they had learnt a lot of new things relevant to teaching their courses. They reiterated that the workshop is extended to other lecturers in the University especially Heads of Departments.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. D. D. Kuupole has commended the Department of Conservation Biology and Entomology for creating public awareness of the importance of biodiversity and how it could be utilized to promote safe environment for the Ghanaian society.

Prof. Kuupole gave this commendation during a ceremony to create awareness on the efforts of the department to help control the invasion of bats on the university campus.

In a speech read on his behalf by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Prof. G. K. T. Oduro, he said the invasion of the bats has been of great concern to management and therefore should be treated with all attention it deserved since they pose a direct health and economic risk to members of the UCC community and the general public.

While expressing concern for the disease dissemination roles of fruits bats, the Vice-Chancellor also acknowledged the positive socio–economic importance of fruit bats saying, “Experts in the field suggest that bats have been used for food and medicine”. According to him research has also shown that the anti-coagulant compound called salivary plasminogen activator found in the saliva of the bat is used to treat strokes. “Unlike alternative medicines, it can be administered even much later after stroke has occurred and still be effective. Physicians used bats to treat ailments of patients ranging from baldness to paralysis.”

He called on the team not end the project on bats only but all other things about biodiversity, not only on UCC campus and Cape Coast but also in Ghana and afar. He also challenged the entire nation to arise and turn the tide around for wildlife and biological resources for the generation,

In a presentation Dr. Justus Deikumah of the department said the bats on campus chose an urban settlement because they would not be harmed as compared to a rural settlement. It is as a result of the degradation of the environment according to Dr. Deikumah that is why the mammals are invading us and therefore advocated for regulations to keep biodiversity intact. “Bats are not foes but it depends on our treatment of the environment”, he said. Explaining the dangers posed by the animals to humans, the lecturer indicated that when one person gets contaminated the whole society would be at risk.

In another presentation, Prof. K. A. Monney reiterated that if the natural habitats of the animals were destroyed, then they would invade our bedrooms sooner than later. He called for research that will create harmony and peaceful co-existence with the bats. Prof. Monney commended management of the university for supporting the project.