UCC targets 50% female admission
The University of Cape Coast (UCC) has pledged its commitment to increase female enrolment to give strong boost to women empowerment.
Professor Joseph Ghartey-Ampiah, the Vice Chancellor (VC), said when women were empowered with resources, equipped with skills, and decent jobs, they became key driving forces in the fight against hunger and poverty.
“I am happy that the prediction for improvement over last year’s percentage had been attained. We are gradually moving towards a 50:50 gender ratio for admission of students into our distance education programme and this has significant socio-economic implications for the family and the society in general.”
The Vice Chancellor was speaking at a matriculation ceremony held on Thursday to formally admit a total of 14,263 fresh students to pursue various undergraduate and post-graduate Distance Programmes for the 2018/2019 academic year in Cape Coast.
The matriculants comprised 1,471 post graduate and 14,263 undergraduate students who would pursue programmes at the College of Education Studies and Business.
On gender basis, there were 7,373 male undergraduates and 6,890 female undergraduates and 866 male post graduates and 605 female postgraduates.
Of the number the proportions of female population increased by 1.5 per cent points compared to last year’s increase of 0.9 per cent.
At the 2017/2018 matriculation, the number of female intake continued to be low as 2,144 females were admitted at the undergraduate level with only 194 of the 555 post-graduate students being females out of a total of 13,188 applications who applied.
Prof. Ghartey-Ampiah acknowledged the tremendous contributions of women at the higher levels of education, adding that enrolment for postgraduates studies ratio of males to female stood at 58.9 per cent and 41.1 per cent.
He reiterated the fact that the University remained committed to its core values therefore the matriculants must strictly adhere to rules and regulations in the students’ Handbook, and pay attention to academic work.
They should make every effort to be studious and punctual to face-to-face sessions to complement their private studies.
He congratulated the matriculants for taking advantage of the distance education programmes offered by UCC to improve on their academic standing to raise their social and financial status for the benefit of their families.
The VC mentioned plans to improve learning through virtual classroom to allow learners to attend a class from anywhere in the world and aims to provide a learning experience that was similar to a real classroom.
It can be used as a solution for live delivery and interaction that addresses the entire process of creating and managing the teaching-learning process.
Earlier, students were taken through orientation by some officials of the University, executives of Distance Education Students Association of Ghana (DESAG) and officials from the Students’ Loan Trust.
Some of the issues they spoke about were Students’ support systems, rules and regulation for students, financial obligations of students, academic regulations and students’ loan.
Similar ceremonies would be held in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale for the other zones.
Source: GNA