Yesterday, the University of Cape Coast (UCC) held a durbar on its campus to climax the 60th anniversary of its establishment.
The Ghanaian Times wishes to congratulate the UCC on its milestone because as an entity, at 60, it can be regarded as having completed a cycle of life and beginning another one.
UCC deserves all the necessary congratulations and commendations for its achievements over the years.
It should be noted that all credit given this great institution of higher learning is in honour of all the men and women who planned and established it and those who have been at the helms of its affairs from its nascent stage till now.
Also important to be mentioned are the host communities,
past and present students, and its various partners, including other institutions of higher learning, home and abroad.
This is important because every entity has certain stakeholders who support it in various capacities to ensure it succeeds.
For instance, UCC was established in October, 1962 as a university college and placed under the University of Ghana, Legon, to train graduate professional teachers for Ghana's second cycle institutions and other professionals for the Ministry of Education to meet the manpower needs of the country's accelerated education programme at the time.
That principally meant that UCC students then could be described as people who, all things being equal, had committed themselves to training that would restrict them to work mostly in the education sector.
Even though some of its products managed to secure employment elsewhere, the number was so negligible that a good number of ambitious young people who preferred other professions thought UCC should be the last resort when it came to university education in the country.
It must be noted that UCC stayed under the University of Ghana for only nine years as on October 1, 1971, it attained the status of an independent university with the authority to confer its own degrees, diplomas and certificates.
Since then the university has been doing exploits.
Today, UCC is a university of choice because most of its faculties have been expanded to offer various programmes like law, while it now boasts schools like that of medical sciences where even medical doctors are trained.
That means the university now has the capacity to meet the manpower needs of other sectors of the country's economy.
The school that started with only 155 students now boasts tens of thousands of regular students plus countless numbers of sandwich and distance education students.
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Apart from admitting students from less endowed schools, a remedial science programme, mature students' entrance examinations and concessionary selections from deprived schools identified by the Joint Admissions Board, UCC has a scholarship scheme for needy brilliant students from its host communities.
At the durbar yesterday, which President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo attended, the Vice Chancellor of UCC, Prof. Johnson Nyarko Boampong, appealed to the government for financial clearance to recruit additional staff to complement the efforts of the overstretched academic staff.
Looking at achievements of UCC over the last 60, this request must be met for it to do more for the development of mother Ghana.
Congratulations once more, UCC!
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