PHARMACY, VETERINARY MEDICINE SCHOOL… to be established at Legon

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, Prof. Clifford Nii Boi Tagoe has announced that, plans are far advanced to set up schools of pharmacy and veterinary medicine.

According to him the accreditation processes was already underway and that first batch of students for the courses would be admitted for the 2008/9 academic year.

Prof. Tagoe made this known at a congregation held last week in Accra.

He hinted that, the Center for Distance Education (CDE) would admit students to degree programmes for the 2007/8 academic year.
“With the encouraging response it is our hope that we would be able to offer university education to a large number of students who would otherwise not have been able to study in the institution”, he said.

The school awarded degrees and diplomas to deserving students in the faculties of Law and Science, the Business School, the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, as well as graduate students.

Prof. Tagoe touched on the revised resident policy, which has created trouble amongst students and the school, saying the university has been able to provide accommodation to the most venerable group of students.

He said the university's authority allowed the Level 400 students to ballot for the remaining accommodation available in the halls and hostels.

Touching on this year's admission, the Vice Chancellor noted that the university recorded a registration of 4,745 undergraduate and 792 postgraduate students, bringing the total population of the university to 26,952.

“In keeping with the vision of the university of promoting a multi-cultural learning experience for our students, 521 foreign students consisting of 244 enrolled in our regular programmes and 277 are on exchange programmes from our partner institutions in Europe, the USA, Canada and Asia”, he said.

Prof. Tagoe mentioned that the graduands performance, which includes nine doctors of philosophy, who are members of the faculty, 16 percent of the diplomates obtained distinctions. Fifteen percent of the undergraduates obtained first class degrees, 26 percent second-class upper degrees with another 15 percent obtaining second class lower degrees.

On ICT, the Vice-Chancellor intimated that as part of facilitating e-learning, the e-mail storage capacity has been increased by over 500% to make it possible for lecturers and students to interact more effectively.

Mrs. Florence A. Dolphyne, an aluminous of the university who was the guest of honour, observed that graduates should take advantage of the National Science Year and the National Service Scheme because it does provide opportunities to contribute to the development of the country.

She advised the graduands, who would be posted to teach in the rural areas, to be committed and dedicated to the task of providing good teaching to the students.

“This 21st Century, we are told, is the age for science and technology without which developing countries like ours would not make it.

“We need to fast track our economic and industrial development,” she said, and asked science graduates to train more science students in our Senior High Schools to feed our universities and polytechnics.

Mrs. Dolphyne advised graduates to be disciplined at their work places and that the recent revelations of mismanagement, incompetence and lack of honesty in our public service, which was revealed at the just ended Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament did not augur well for meaningful development.

Mr. Anthony Oteng Gyasi, Chairman of the Council of the University of Ghana, in his address said the issue of no jobs in the country has to be questioned and also policy makers of the state have to take a second look at labour intensive policies in the country.

The Chairman of the Council observed that, the garment industry should be carefully looked at and called on government to check the activities of foreign companies in the garments industry.

Miss. Selina Sappor, a graduate of Business School, delivered the valedictory message appealing to her colleagues to put the knowledge they had acquired to good use.