The Leadership of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR), Ghana, has introduced a weekend-based programme to enable members outside of Accra to take part in its annual professional accreditation programme.

The programme, which is scheduled to begin on Monday, June 3, is in fulfillment of the Institute’s cardinal objective of training Public Relations (PR) professionals and strengthening the capabilities of members to effectively take on the PR needs of corporate institutions, government and high-profile individuals.

Mr Henry Nii Dottey; APR, the Honorary Secretary of IPR and Programme Coordinator, said the introduction was in response to request by practitioners outside of Accra to participate in the programme on weekends instead of using their annual leave, which was meant for rest.

He said that the Institute had reviewed the content of the accreditation programme to take care of the ever-changing needs of the profession as well as respond to the challenging nature of businesses.

He said some of the new courses introduced for the 2019 accreditation programme were content management, leadership and management as well as improving the course content of some of the existing topics.

He said that communications landscape was fast-evolving and required communications practitioners to be abreast with new developments, best practices and applications, especially of new technologies to communications practice.

The programme has been designed to address these necessities with seasoned communications practitioners facilitating discussions on Strategic Public Relations Management, Public Relations Writing, Integrated Communications, Etiquette and Protocol, Media Management and New Technology and Public Relations Law and Ethics.

Mr. Dottey explained that members desirous of moving up the professional ladder must subject themselves to the examinations, while members with a minimum of 10 years post graduate experience in the profession, who wish to be exempted from the examinations must present a case study on PR related issue and pass an interview.

The Programme Coordinator said a successful candidate at the level one of the examinations would lead to the member being admitted into the Associate member category and a successful candidate at level two would earn Accredited membership, which entitles them to use the initials APR at the end of their names to indicate their professional status.

He encouraged all practitioners yet to attain the Accredited membership category to take advantage of the accreditation programme and also admonished those who clamoured for the weekend to make the best of the opportunity offered.

The programme, which commenced on June 3, will end on July 3 with examinations set for July 15- 19, 2019.