The Acting Dean of the School of Performing Arts, University of Ghana, Professor Kofi Agyekum, has called for the inclusion of grassroots participation in governance through the use of the mother tongue.

He said “whenever the language is switched from that of the masses, plans for economic, agricultural and industrial developments are more difficult to make”. He advised that Ghana’s local languages must be developed to become a means of regular communication.

Professor Agyekum made this call at a Public Lecture organised by the Department of Ghanaian Language and Linguistics, to commemorate 2019 International Mother Language celebration under the theme, “Indigenous languages matter for development, peace building and reconciliation”.

Speak  Mother Language to Promote Culture and Heritage of Ghana                                                                                 

Speaking at the programme the Pro Vice Chancellor of University of Cape Coast, Prof. Dora F. Edu-Buondoh expressed worry that some Ghanaians did not love to speak their own mother tongue.  She said that some Ghanaians had become foreigners in their own land and thrown their culture away. She advised that “whiles learning foreign languages to advance ourselves, we should as well learn our local languages too, this is the only way we can keep our culture and heritage”. 

Brief History of International Mother Language Day                                                       

International Mother Language Day is a worldwide celebration observed on 21^st of February with the aim of promoting awareness of linguistic, cultural, diversity and promoting multilingual. The celebration was first announced by the UNESCO on November 17, 1999 and was formerly recognised by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in a resolution established in 2008 as International Mother Language Day. This day is celebrated every year with the overall objective to promote linguistic diversity and multilingual education.

Celebration of International Mother Language Day in UCC

The Department of Ghanaian Language and Linguistics of the University of Cape Coast started observing the day three years ago. The first celebration was marked with a Public Lecture on the theme, "Towards Sustainable Futures through Multilingual Education." which was delivered by a lecturer from the School of Language, University of Education, Winneba. The second was celebrated as part of the Faculty of Arts Lecture series on the theme, “The Need for Review and Stability of Language on the Mother Language Education”.

 

The School of Nursing and Midwifery has organised a workshop on plagiarism for its postgraduate students.

Purpose

The workshop was to help the students understand the concept and also endeavor to avoid plagiarism in their writings. This has become necessary because the University was putting in place mechanisms to detect plagiarized work by students.

Opening Remarks

Giving the opening remark, the Dean of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Dr. (Mrs.) Dorcas Obiri-Yeboah stated that “there is a lot of confusion amongst students and some faculties as to what constitute plagiarism. So sometimes, you will find out that a student will not really think that what he/she did was plagiarism and yet, in reality, it was completely plagiarism”.

Dr. (Mrs.) Obiri-Yeboah encouraged the students to take the workshop serious in order to help them avoid plagiarizing other people’s work.

Tips to Avoid Plagiarism

Speaking on the topic, “Plagiarism- A How NOT to”, a Principal Research Officer at the Directorate of Research Innovation and Consultancy (DRIC), Mr. Isaac Nketsiah, led the students through what constituted plagiarism, the types of plagiarism and how to avoid it.

Taking the students through some of the tips to help them avoid plagiarism, Mr. Nketsiah noted that, “One has to understand the difference between quoting, summarising and paraphrasing.” He advised them to refrain from copying more than three or more words in a row from a source without using quotation marks. He further told them to map out their arguments and then quote sources to support to them-“Explain the author’s idea in the context of the paper, compare and contrast the views of other authors, and adding one’s own critique.” He said these tips amongst others would help them to eliminate plagiarism.

UCC’s Plagiarism Policy

Mr. Nketsiah also enlightened the students on UCC’s Plagiarism Policy. He stated that, “the University wants to hold dear its integrity, so you can’t just produce a plagiarized work in the University. If you plagiarize from 20 to 49%, you will be required to revise your paper and remove all plagiarized portions in your work”; he said students whose work contained 50% to 59% plagiarism would be asked to change their topic and those with 70% or more, would be dismissed and banned from pursuing any programme in the University for five years”

He called on students to seek assistance from their supervisors in order to produce works that were devoid of plagiarised information.

The students were also taken through some practical sessions during the workshop .

A team from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has paid a courtesy call on the Vice-Chancellor.

The delegation from UNESCO, led by Ms. Anna Coupez of the Education sector from Paris, were in UCC to conduct feasibility studies on the Government of Ghana’s proposal to raise the status of the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (I.E.P.A.) of the University of Cape Coast Ghana to a Category II Centre for Excellence to upscale capacity building and support innovation in the education space of the sub-region under the auspices of UNESCO. This is aimed at contributing to the achievement of SDG4 targets and the Education 2030 Agenda,

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, expressed gratitude to the team for visiting UCC to conduct the study. He assured the team that the University was prepared to embrace the outcome of the assessment. He also noted on the University’s commitment to the exercise.

Prof.   Ampiah also assured the I.E.P.A. of the full support from the University and that the University is committed to the exercise.  He said “anything that we need to really improve ourselves in order to get there, we are prepared to do that with all support given to I.E.P.A. in that respect”.

Present at the meeting were, the Registrar, Mr. John Kofi Nyan; Former Pro-Vice Chancellor, Prof. George K.T. Oduro, Reps from UNESCO, Paris,  Dean for Centre and International Education Director of Academic Planning and Quality Assurance, Prof. J. V. Mensah; Director Research Innovation and Consultancy, Prof Samuel Annim and lecturers of I.E.P.A.