Teachers Have The Power To Change The Country

Ms Marian Lily Adams, a Retired Senior Lecturer of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), has entreated government to cherish teachers in the country, since they wield the power to educate any nation’s human resources.

Ms Adams explained that teachers were one of the pillars of the society and the country, and without dedicated and efficient teachers no nation could develop.

The Retired Senior Lecturer made this statement at the eighth Congregation of the Holy Child College of Education in Takoradi on the theme: “The Teacher-A Tool for Development.”

A total number of 184 graduated this year.

Ms Adams, an old student of the college, noted that no other personality could have an influence more profound than a teacher, because students were deeply affected by a teacher’s love and actions.

The Principal of the College, Mrs. Margaret Boadiwa Lemaire, said the students continued to produce excellent results due to the dedicated staff.

She urged the graduands to further their education, and not to relapse into mediocrity.

Mrs. Lemaire revealed that some infrastructure projects in the college, such has the school library, had been completed, while the refurbishment of other projects such as the college's Assembly Hall and classroom blocks were in progress, to increase the seating capacity, and also to upgrade the college to befit its current state.

The Principal expressed gratitude to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETfund), stakeholders, benefactors and friends, for their immense support towards the development of the school.

She appealed to government and other corporate entities to come to the aid of the College with the provision of infrastructure and the construction of potable roads.

Miss Ajara Bassaw, overall best student, appealed to government to tackle the issue of a high level of graduate unemployment to enhance the human resource of the country.


Source: GNA

UEW Council pleads for increased financial support

Kumasi, May 4, GNA - The Chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Dr Emmanuel Kenneth Andoh, has called for increased financial support to aid the expansion of infrastructure for the training of more top class professional educators.

He said inadequate funding was making it difficult to meet the demands on its services by the growing student enrollment.

Dr Andoh was addressing the 19th Congregation of the College of Technology Education of the university in Kumasi.

A total of 3,847 students received Masters and Bachelors’ degrees and Diploma certificates in Business, Technology and other programmes offered at the college.

Two hundred and thirty three students who pursued Diploma in Education programme at the Cape Coast Polytechnic, under a collaborative programme between the university and the polytechnic, also graduated.

Dr Andoh said the College of Technology Education had been transformed into a premier institution for training of professionals in technology education and related fields in the West African sub-region.

The increasing number of graduates’ year-after-year was indicative of its commitment to excellence and continued growth, he said.

He, however, pointed out that the rise in student admission and technical programmes would have to be matched with appropriate financial and material support.

Dr Andoh advised the graduating students to be humble, honest and exhibit high sense of integrity which, he said, were essential in the teaching profession.

Professor Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw, the Vice Chancellor, advised the students to be hard working and to develop right attitudes at the workplace.

He said the university would continue to explore opportunities through innovative ways to equip its students with the right skills to tackle the challenges facing the society.


Source: Ghana News Agency

45,000 extra teachers needed to effect universal basic education - Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah

About 45,000 extra teachers are needed to provide universal basic education in the country, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, has said.


He was addressing the first annual Easter Forum on the theme: “Distance Education: Our hope for sustainable human capacity development in Ghana”, at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) yesterday.

Currently, he said, there were 260,000 basic school teachers, half of which were untrained.

Statistics show that most untrained teachers are found at the kindergarten and the primary levels, where 72.4 per cent of the 42,128 teachers have no training.

At the primary level, this falls to 50.5 per cent of 126,596 teachers, and drops again to 37 per cent of the 90,687 teachers at the junior high school level.

Prof Anamuah-Mensah said basic education in the country faced a serious problem, with about 800,000 children of school age currently out of school.


Tertiary education

At the tertiary level of education, he said, traditional approaches to learning were inadequate to overcome the challenge and, therefore, advocated distance education as a panacea to propel access to education.

“The key to rectifying the teacher shortfall in Ghana, though, is not through conventional teacher training but rather the rise of distance education, which has and will continue to be critical because the demand for teachers is so huge,” he said.


Lack of co-ordination

Prof Anamuah-Mensah, however, bemoaned the un-coordinated nature of distance education in the country, noting that more than 10 years after distance education was introduced, it was yet to be properly co-ordinated.

The Vice-Chancellor of the UCC, Prof. D.D. Kuupole, stressed the urgent need for collaboration among tertiary institutions to provide quality education, adding, “We need to have a guiding principle on where we are going.”

“So many of us have been left out; we need to strategise and bring everybody on board,” he stressed.

In a speech read on his behalf, the Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Major Albert Don-Chebe (retd), said only about 68,000 people procured university degrees in Ghana a year, saying that was woefully inadequate for human resource development in the country.

He pledged the corporation’s commitment to partner the UCC to provide quality education for Ghanaians.


Source: Timothy Gobah, graphic.com.gh

Tertiary education should not be elitist - Professor Josephus Anamuah-Mensah

Cape Coast, April 30, GNA - Professor Josephus Anamuah-Mensah, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, says the efforts to raise Ghana unto a higher middle income status would be unrealistic if access to tertiary education remains elitist.

He said currently access to tertiary education as measured by the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) is 12 per cent which means that a large number of talents lie dormant and uncultivated to contribute to the country’s prosperity.

He said there is the need to increase the existing percentage to about 30 per cent to be able to move the nation beyond the lower middle-income status.

“There is a higher education demand surge but many Ghanaians are deprived of tertiary education, only 12 per cent of post-secondary school graduates get access to the university. We are struggling to move beyond the lower middle-income but the figure is too low for a higher middle-income status,” he said.

Prof Anamuah-Mensah said this when he delivered the keynote address at the maiden annual Easter forum organised by the College of Distance Education (CoDE) of the University of Cape Coast (UCC).

The forum, which was on the theme: “Distance education: Our hope for a sustained human capacity development in Ghana,” was aimed at addressing the issues concerning distance education.

He said the role of higher education especially for African countries cannot be taken lightly and urged Ghanaians not to view tertiary education as something for the elites alone.

Distance education is the best alternative to addressing the problem of limited access to tertiary education as it offers the working populace the opportunity to improve upon their knowledge in the work place, Prof Anamuah-Mensah said.

He said with 49.3 per cent of the total number of teachers at the basic school level being untrained, distance education would obviously be the recommended option for them if they want to go to school while they remain in the classrooms.

The former Vice-Chancellor urged the organisers of distance education programmes to put in place employable skills courses that are work-based and expand its scope to introduce technical and vocational programmes.

Professor D. D Kuupole, Vice Chancellor of UCC, said distance education since its inception in 1994, has become embedded in the country’s educational sector and called on all to embrace it.

He said distance education makes higher education flexible and offer a larger number of people the opportunity to enrol in any programme.

He said the discussions, sharing of ideas and innovations that may come up during the forum would go a long way to make advancement in the distance learning programs.

Heads of training colleges, education administrators, teachers, university dons and the Director of CoDE, Prof, George Oduro were present at the one-day forum.



Source: Ghana News Agency

Coalition of Tertiary Students protest payment of utility bills

The Coalition of Tertiary Students, Ghana, say they will resist any attempt by government to make tertiary students resident on campus bear the cost of utilities.

According to them, they will not sit and watch government pass on its social compact expectations on its students.

Deputy Minister of Education in charge of Tertiary, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa early this month announced at a meeting of Campus Connect in Kumasi that, as part of measures to reduce the pressure on government coffers, tertiary students resident on campus would be charged for using utility services.

However, at a press conference organised Tuesday, the president of the Coalition of Tertiary Students, Ghana, Mr Duke Aaron Sasu said, “We students and student leaders oppose vehemently this ill thought through Government policy. We would resist any attempt by government to force the hands of students to bear the arrears of utility bills owed by the universities as a consequence of the failure of government of Ghana to exercise its responsibilities.”

They have therefore warned of mass nationwide student rallies to press home their demand.

The coalition has also asked all tertiary students across the country to embark on a ‘red alert crusade’ to register their displeasure, adding, “Every student of Ghana must identify with something red to register our displeasure until the Government calls off this sickening policy.”

The coalition is made up of the Wa and Nyankpala campuses of the University of Development Studies (UDS), the University of Mines and Technology, (UMaT), Kumasi and Takoradi Polytechnics, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) Kumasi Campus.


Source: Written by Graphic.com.gh 

University of Education, Winneba (UEW) Launches Corporate Strategic Plan

Winneba, April 27, GNA - The University of Education, Winneba (UEW), has launched its Third Strategic Plan for the years 2014 to 2018, with a call on staff to work hard towards its success.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw, speaking at the launch, said two earlier Strategic Plans, namely the 2003-2008 and the 2009-2013, were the primary management tools that had brought the University that far.

He said the first strategic plan aimed to expand the University at a very fast pace, after attaining autonomy.

He said the University adopted ICT as a tool for teaching and learning, and embarked on vigorous measures to address the serious gender imbalance among students.

Prof Asabere-Ameyaw said the University had, therefore, seen remarkable transformation and improvement in infrastructure, curriculum development, staffing, student enrollments, and expansion in graduate studies, among other achievements.

The chairman of the University's Governing Council, Dr. Emmanuel K. Andoh, said the new strategic plan was an attestation to efforts towards achieving the very purpose for which the institution of higher learning was established.

He stated: “We are still mindful of our vision as a Teacher Training University, tasked with the sole responsibility to spearhead the new national vision of education, aimed at re-directing Ghana’s efforts along the path of rapid economic and social development.”

Prof Mahama Duwiejua, Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education, who launched the Plan, hoped that the 2014-18 Corporate Strategic Plan would serve as the blue-print to further build on the remarkable achievements the University had already accomplished.

He called for the judicious application of human and financial resources, to achieve set strategic goals.


Source: Ghana News Agency

Lecturers at the University of Education Winneba Go Wild

Lecturers at the University of Education Winneba have accused authorities of treating administrators kingly and are thus demanding to use a newly built office complex which has been marked as the registry. According to the lecturers, their accusation stems from the fact that most of them have, for the past 20 years not sat in an office, yet a newly completed office complex (Teku Block 2), built in their name to resolve their long standing office difficulty had been allocated to administrators. “Meanwhile, there is no shred of evidence that administrators lack offices. Even people employed recently have one”, the lecturers lamented. It was noted that one had to attain the position of a Dean or Head a Department to have an office- a situation they indicated destructed their work. Aside the handful that had offices, the lecturers revealed that some of them pass through lecture halls to access their office, and that, “Student desks block the entrances; thereby trapping the lecturer in that tiny office till the 3-hour lecture was over. Imagine if you need to use the wash room”. As a result, many have had to resort to using the shades of trees and the trunk of their cars as offices. In addition to the inadequacy of offices, there is a salary impasse between lecturers and administrators of which lecturers have expressed worry. The lecturers also took government to task on the books and research allowance administrators received and alleged it was only lecturers that do research for promotions. In an exclusive interview with The New Crusading GUIDE last Wednesday, at the North campus, the National President of University Teachers Association Ghana (UTAG), Dr. Samuel Ofori Bekoe, confirmed the situation the lecturers found themselves in and reiterated that that office building “which is being shared in the dark to administrators” originally had the Lecturers Office Annex when the school bid for the facility at GETFund. He said he was clear in his mind because he was part of the development committee that saw to infrastructural development, adding, that it was even mentioned repeatedly during academic meetings.   The president could not understand why administrators already had offices and still the new building would be added on to theirs. He acknowledged the tremendous improvement in the area of infrastructure seen in the past 8 years reign of the Vice Chancellor, Professor Asabre, but accused him of neglecting the core persons (lecturers) of the university and all they got when they complained was the word ‘wait’. He observed that if wider consultations had been done with lecturers and students before the project begun, things would have been much better than the situation they have at hand now. Christopher Akwaa-Mensah, the Registrar, after admitting to the problems in office accommodation described as mischievous the actions by lecturers that about 90 percent of the office challenges had been resolved already. Displaying a building plan in front of this reporter, Mr. Akwaa-Mensah denied that Teku block 2 was originally for lecturers, adding that, lecturers were supposed to be in faculties and not separate office complex. “Indeed administrators needed offices more than lecturers because administrators could lose documents belonging to the school but the lecturers; they can sit in their cars, revise and proceed to teach”, the registrar noted. The Registrar pointed out that there were other infrastructure projects going on their campuses and that it was a matter of time and the issue of offices would be a thing of the past. Nevertheless, he assured them of the completion of an Education Faculty soon, to accommodate scores of lecturers in addition to the hall of residence at the Central campus converted into offices, to benefit lecturers of Creative Arts Department. Responding to the comments of the Registrar, Dr. Ofori Bekoe said they were not complaining about the location of the office because lecturers have been driving from home all the time to teach.

Source: New Crusading Guide

Gov’t owes over GH¢2m in utility bills – UEW SRC

President of the Students Representative Council (SRC) of the University of Education, Winneba, Abdul Rahman has revealed that the institution owes utility companies about GH¢2 million.

He lamented that because of government’s inability to defray the bills, the Ghana Water Company has cut water supply to the school. 

According to him, the situation is making life unbearable for them. Speaking on Eyewitness News, the SRC president said “we have three campuses, the north, central and the south campus, when I did my checks, I realized that water was not flowing in all the three campuses. 

I was later told that yesterday in the morning the water company came to disconnect our water because of government’s inability to settle the utility bills.

” When asked about the amount involved by Eyewitness News host, Richard Dela Sky, Abdul Rahman said “we owe about GH¢2 million…that is both water bill and electricity bills.”

 He intimated that “we have over 13,000 students on campus and life is uncomfortable on campus. We are having our SRC elections today…this week is going to be a busy week for the university so it’s rather unfortunate that the government is trying to make things unbearable for ordinary students.”

“We are begging the president to listen to the plights of the students.  He should call his people to order, they are not trying to listen to us at all,” he lamented. 

In a related development, tertiary students across the country have kicked against government’s decision to to transfer the full cost of utility bills to students. 

The Education Ministry which is pushing the agenda has explained that government has over the years been saddled with utility bills from public institutions which it has been unable to pay.

Some students who spoke to Citi News said the new directive insisting that it will bring untold hardship to them.


 - By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey /citifmonline.com/Ghana