Cape Coast, Oct. 9, GNA - A total of 3,160 people who pursued various courses of study including business management, commerce and education through the University of Cape Coast's (UCC) distance learning programme graduated at the 40th congregation on Thursday. The Vice-Chancellor of UCC, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, who announced this when she addressed the congregation of the first of three batches of students to be graduated this year, said the centre had been decentralized in eight regions of the country.

She underscored the importance of higher education to national development and said UCC instituted the Centre for Continuing Education to run the distance education programme to make higher learning accessible to all Ghanaians and appealed to the government to support it. She said the Centre, since its establishment in 2002, had undergone tremendous change in terms of programmes and the mode of delivery but would still pursue a five-year strategic plan to help address the growing challenges of distance education such as the increasing number of students and programmes.

Among the strategic plan, she said, were the introduction of new and attractive courses to meet the demand of the pubic and the national economy, the construction of permanent offices and lecture theatres in the regions. The Centre will also sponsor bright and willing students to pursue postgraduate studies up to the doctorate level to raise further the academic backgrounds of tutors of the centre, Pro. Opoku-Agyemang said. She pledged UCC's commitment to ensure that the profile of its distance education programme was raised at the national and international levels and congratulated the graduates for their hard work adding that they should be concerned for the less privileged in society Hajia Boya Hawawu Gariba, Deputy Minister of Women and Children's Affairs, appealed to university authorities to manage costs within a transparent framework as they seek legitimate funding for their operations. She asked the graduates not to depend solely on the certificates they have obtained but to use the knowledge they have acquired profitably by contributing their quota toward nation building.