Wa, April 28, GNA - The University of Ghana is in the final stages of changing the name of the Institute of Adult Education (IAE) to that of Institute of Continuing and Distance Education to reflect its current focus of providing excellent continuing and distant university education to all Ghanaians.

Professor Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi, Director of the Institute at Wa, said the new name followed global trends in higher education, placing greater emphasis on lifelong and distant learning, as a hallmark of an ever-changing and interdependent world. He said this at this year's Northern Easter School, which is underway at Wa under the theme: "Development of Northern Ghana Through Lifelong Learning."

He said the popularity of the University's Distance Education (DE) degree programme kept rising as evidenced by the fact that out of 5,000 people who wrote the "Mature" students entrance examination in the University, 2,240 opted for the Distance Education (DE) programme. Last year, he said the University received grants and loans totalling about 30 million US dollars from the People's Republic of China, to build the University's capacity to deliver education nationwide through the distance learning mode.

The grant would be used to equip the Institute with the necessary hardware, software and other accessories and training for the implementation of ICT based DE programmes.

Professor Oheneba-Sakyi said the project which was being managed by Unisplendour Software System company Ltd, was a component of the University's five-year IT strategic plan, that was in line with the national ICT policy developed by the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Education.

An additional Distance Education Centre would be established at Wa to ease the problems of DE students from that part of country, who travel to Kumasi or Tamale for their bi-monthly tutorials, he stated. The Most Reverend Paul Bemile, Catholic Bishop of Wa, who chaired the opening session of the school, urged the government to consider extending resources to cover private schools because they were also rendering service for the development of the nation. He expressed the hope that the proposed Savannah Accelerated Development Authority that is indented to bridge the development gap between Southern and Northern Ghana would not go the way the Upper Regional Agricultural Development Programme (URADEP) and the Northern Regional Rural Integrated Programme (NORRIP) went in the 1970's and 1980's respectively.

The Northern Easter School is an annual event organized by the Institute to brings people of diverse academic and professional backgrounds together, to brainstorm on issues that can chart a new course for the development of Northern Ghana