UCC Vice-Chancellor Appeals for Funds to Complete On-Going Projects

Pro-VC Prof. John Nelson Buah and Hon Samuel Okudjeto
inspecting the SB Lecture Complex

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. D. D. Kuupole has appealed to the Ministry of Education to provide funds within the shortest time to complete on-going projects on campus to enable the university to increase admission of students for the 2013/2014 academic year.
Prof. Kuupole indicated that UCC had not been able to increase admission of regular students due to lack of lecture halls and accommodation facilities.

The Vice-Chancellor made this appeal when the Deputy Minister for Education, Hon. Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa paid a fact-finding visit to discuss issues confronting UCC, particularly the admission of the two batches of students who completed senior high school (SHS) in September, this year.

Prof. Kuupole informed the Deputy Minister that UCC could only admit 5,000 students due to lack of space. He added that discussions were on-going to explore the possibility of admitting additional 1,000 students at the Accra campus which was currently being used on weekends by distance education students.

For his part, Mr. Ablakwa said the government had begun discussions with heads of tertiary institutions to clear the backlog of the two batches of SHS graduates. He announced that an amount of Seven Million Ghana Cedis had been allocated to tertiary institutions to complete projects that were at 70% stage. He assured the Vice-Chancellor that a two-large lecture halls would be constructed using pre-fabricated materials before the commencement of 2013/2014 academic year begins.

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Prof.  John Nelson Buah who took the Deputy Minister round to inspect on-going projects entreated the Minister to find long term solutions to the current challenges so that more students could be admitted in the years ahead.

He therefore called on government to immediately allocate funds to the University so that the School of Business and School of Agriculture Lecture Complexes could be completed. Projects inspected by the Minister include the new Administration Block, Faculty of Science Annex, School of Business Lecture Complex, School of Agriculture Lecture Complex and the Medical Village of the School of Medical Sciences.

The Minister was accompanied by representatives from the Ministries of Education, Finance and Economic Planning, National Accreditation Board and the National Council for Tertiary Education.