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President Nana\u00a0Akufo-Addo\u00a0has\u00a0assured\u00a0of government\u2019s resolve to retrieve all public lands that have been encroached upon across the country.<\/p>\n
He said government was prepared to take the necessary steps to reclaim the lands to be used for the intended development purposes\u00a0for which they were\u00a0legally\u00a0acquired.<\/p>\n
The President issued the caution while responding to an appeal by the\u00a0Management of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) when he addressed the\u00a060th\u00a0Anniversary\u00a0grand\u00a0durbar on\u00a0Thursday.<\/p>\n
In the\u00a0case of the\u00a0UCC, President\u00a0Akufo-Addo\u00a0observed that almost one third of the\u00a0University\u2019s\u00a0lands\u00a0had been lost to encroachers, describing it as unfortunate and unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am saddened by this state of affairs,\u00a0especially because it is happening in Cape Coast of all places, the cradle of Ghana\u2019s education,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He, therefore, called on\u00a0the\u00a0chiefs and all stakeholders to immediately cease further sales of the\u00a0university\u2019s\u00a0land\u00a0to ensure its\u00a0advancement through a raft of planned development projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must begin to see the university not only as a national asset and an asset for the Central Region but,\u00a0most importantly, as an asset for the people of Cape Coast in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n
Established in October 1962, UCC\u00a0launched its 60th\u00a0Anniversary on Thursday, April 21,\u00a0this year, on\u00a0the theme: \u201c60\u00a0Years of\u00a0Quality\u00a0Higher\u00a0Education,\u00a0Expanding the\u00a0Frontiers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The\u00a0university\u00a0started with an initial intake\u00a0of\u00a0165 with two programmes\u00a0in\u00a0Arts and\u00a0Sciences\u00a0in\u00a01962.<\/p>\n
It\u00a0currently\u00a0has more than 74,000 students pursuing 425 programmes of study including\u00a0Law,\u00a0Medicine,\u00a0Pharmacy,\u00a0Nursing and\u00a0Midwifery,\u00a0and\u00a0Optometry.<\/p>\n
The anniversary\u00a0is to\u00a0celebrate\u00a0its\u00a0achievements and impact on Ghana and the globe in its 60 years of existence and reflect on its setbacks to re-strategise\u00a0for higher feat.<\/p>\n
The six-month-long celebration was marked by a number of activities including professorial and memorial lectures, health walks, and college days.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0rest were\u00a0media engagements, Chancellor\u2019s Day, games and sporting activities, alumni homecoming, and awards and dinner night.<\/p>\n
The colourful durbar, which crowned the celebration, was\u00a0attended by hundreds of stakeholders including, Ministers of State, Members of Parliament and delegations from partner universities.<\/p>\n
Minutes before the durbar, the President commissioned selected projects in the\u00a0university\u00a0including the School of Graduate Studies building, a six-storey guesthouse,\u00a0and the School of Medical Sciences\u00a0Laboratory and its\u00a0Administration\u00a0Block.<\/p>\n
President\u00a0Akufo-Addo\u00a0commended UCC for its impact\u00a0on education, business, agriculture and medicine and for blessing Ghana with a good number of competent personalities across all fields.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0commended\u00a0Professor Johnson\u00a0Nyarko\u00a0Boampong, the Vice-Chancellor,\u00a0for providing leadership to produce entrepreneurs in the face of complaints that universities were not producing enough\u00a0practical-oriented\u00a0graduates fit for the world of work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI assure you that government will do everything possible to ensure that this vision is realised not only at\u00a0the\u00a0UCC but also within the broader spectrum of our tertiary educational landscape,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed, this is the way to go if our university education is to remain relevant and continue to contribute to our national development.\u201d<\/p>\n
He charged the\u00a0institution\u00a0to remain \u201cpure and unadulterated\u201d in the provision of quality academic and intellectual discourse to\u00a0find solutions to\u00a0the\u00a0complex problems across borders and disciplines.<\/p>\n
Touching on the hardships\u00a0bedevilling\u00a0the Ghanaian economy, the President urged citizens to be patriotic and determined in unison to enable the country\u00a0to\u00a0surmount the difficulties\u00a0hindering its\u00a0journey towards prosperity.<\/p>\n
Dr Sir Sam Jonah, the Chancellor of the\u00a0UCC, urged\u00a0all universities\u00a0in Ghana\u00a0to take active steps to wean themselves\u00a0off\u00a0government subvention if they were to remain relevant.<\/p>\n
He observed that with the proliferation of tertiary educational\u00a0institutions in Ghana, it was\u00a0unsustainable for universities to rely on government\u2019s scarce resources.<\/p>\n
To maintain academic excellence and remain relevant, universities must find creative and innovative strategies for accessing funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should think out of the box in designing our fundraising\u00a0initiatives. In this regard, we should tap into the alumni we have across the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must actively pursue public private partnership not onlyto\u00a0expand infrastructure but also to increase the numbers of faculty staff. This calls for us to be even more entrepreneurial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Touting the\u00a0achievements\u00a0of the\u00a0UCC, Prof\u00a0Boampong expressed pride\u00a0in the university being\u00a0adjudged\u00a0the\u00a0\u2018Best\u00a0University in Ghana and West Africa and\u00a0Fourth in the world in the Times Higher Education World University\u00a0Rankings\u2019\u00a0for the\u00a0second\u00a0consecutive\u00a0time.<\/p>\n
He described\u00a0the feat as unprecedented in the history of any university in Ghana, which\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0its\u00a0contribution to education and impact\u00a0on\u00a0research in Ghana.<\/p>\n
He said\u00a0the authorities had\u00a0undertaken a raft of initiatives including the construction of edifices to improve\u00a0teaching and\u00a0learning and enhance the\u00a0quality of graduates produced.<\/p>\n
Prof\u00a0Boampong\u00a0appealed to the President\u00a0to\u00a0give the school clearance to recruit new academic staff to improve\u00a0academic work.<\/p>\n
He observed that\u00a0government\u2019s\u00a0Free Senior High School policy had resulted in a significant increase in class sizes for which reason\u00a0new lecturers\u00a0were needed to lessen the burdened\u00a0on the\u00a0overstretched academic staff.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0commended\u00a0successive governments for their contribution to the\u00a0growth of\u00a0the\u00a0University and\u00a0pledged\u00a0its\u00a0resolve to continue to contribute to\u00a0national\u00a0development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Nana\u00a0Akufo-Addo\u00a0has\u00a0assured\u00a0of government\u2019s resolve to retrieve all public lands that have been encroached upon across the country. He said government was prepared to take the necessary steps to reclaim the lands to be used for the intended development purposes\u00a0for which they were\u00a0legally\u00a0acquired. The President issued the caution while responding to an appeal by the\u00a0Management of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1230299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1230297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1230297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1230297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1230297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1230297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}