UNIVERSITY STATUS FOR CUC MEANS HIGHER RESPONSIBILITY - PROF. KWESI YANKAH

PROF. KWESI YANKAH The Central University College (CUC) has been granted a charter to become a fully-fledged university, becoming the first in 14 years to be accredited. The charter enables the institution, now called Central University, to award its own certificates, diplomas and degrees for programes accredited by the National Accreditation Board (NAB). The President of the Central University, Prof. Kwesi Yankah, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, expressed satisfaction with the achievement, but added that it placed on the institution “a higher sense of responsibility”. “The award means the core business of research and studies must be strengthened,” Prof. Yankah said. “We would improve our graduate school by building our master’s programes to also feed into our school,” he said. Publications Other areas that had to be strengthened, Prof. Yankah said, were publications by the university. Already, the university has launched its maiden journal, the Central Inquiry, with interesting contributions from faculty members and students. Prof. Yankah said the Central University continued to pay book and research allowances to lecturers, supporting enquiry, research and publications in spite of the financial squeeze in other universities and for which reason the allowance had been stopped. Additionally, lecturers were supported to attend international conferences because of the institution’s hallmark in nurturing excellence in students. Faith, integrity, excellence “Being closely guided by the principles of faith, integrity and excellence in all we do, we ensure that students passing out have undergone training in disciplines that have these principles embedded,” Prof. Yankah said. He said the university, therefore, had coaching in leadership, righteousness, productivity, among other such programmes and students were required to take any of them before they graduated. Another unique factor about the course contents of the university was the requirement for students to take up community service as a requirement for graduation, to ground them in volunteerism and patriotism. Administration, faculty, staff Prof. Yankah said with the strong leadership provided by the Chancellor of the Central University, Dr Mensah Otabil; with the sterling advice provided by the eminent members of the university’s board; and with the quality of faculty and staff, the institution was set on a path of executing its 10-year strategic plan, which would include the setting up of its School of Medical Sciences and Engineering. Accreditation process Prof. Yankah said the accreditation process had been long, with the administration of the school putting in an application in 2008, which was not approved. In 2014, the institution applied again and was made to start the process from scratch. “We learnt from our past attempt, we covered grounds and were able to provide responses to all questions during the assessment,” he said. Before the charter, the CUC had been affiliated to the University of Cape Coast (UCC), with affiliations to other universities in the running of various programmes. Thus, its business and humanities programmes were under the supervision of the UCC its science programmes under the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), while its communication programme was under the University of Ghana, Legon. The affiliation meant that tuition and learning were undertaken in accordance with standards, with the universities it was affiliated to supervising all academic activities. With the solid footing, the CUC introduced new programmes in high demand such as law, about two years ago and all other faculties strengthened. Independent institution Prof Yankah said the charter offered the opportunities and provided the challenge for the Central University to serve as an independent institution which, however, maintained integrity within its processes and the structures. That, he added, meant that the university had to add value to its degrees, and grow to be unique among other universities in order to have the moral authority to mentor others. These, Prof. Yankah said, were all big challenges that the school was taking up, bearing in mind the scripture, “To whom much is given, much is required.” Context The CUC was established in 1998 as a pastoral training institute and later accredited as a Christian university college.

Source: Daily Graphic