The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology KNUST, has inaugurated a new faculty of Distance learning to increase equitable access to tertiary education. The new Faculty seeks to make available a wide variety of demand-driven undergraduate, graduate and continuing professional educational programmes from all the colleges of the university, to prospective students in Ghana and beyond, through the use of a wide range of technologies including, print, multimedia, TV, and radio broadcast, video conferencing and web-based technology. At the inauguration today, the Vice- Chancellor of KNUST, Professor Kwesi Andam noted that KNUST has been able to develop substantial ICT infrastructure which includes interconnection among various departments to the Network operating centre, NOC, using fiber optic technology and a two-way broadband internet access which puts the university at a strategic position for distance and e-learning. He said the only challenge is to develop course material, digitize the course contents, acquire relevant delivery and technology platform and provide members of staff with skills necessary for creating educational materials for distance education. In a speech read for her, the Minister of State for Higher Education Miss Elizabeth Ohene noted that, the major requirement for the successful implementation of Distance Education is collaboration and the sharing of ideas and resources.

Miss Elizabeth Ohene stated that, government?s expectation is that the universities would avoid duplication of! efforts and complement each other to promote the implementation of quality Distance Education in the country. An education specialist from the Commonwealth of Learning based in Canada, Mr. Joshua Mallet pledged the institutions support for KNUST?s initiative. The provost for the college of science KNUST, Professor Aboagye Menyeh, said this venture will offer distance education to the nation?s teeming youth who could not gain access to the universities. Programmes to start in the 2006/7 academic year include Computer Engineering, MBA, BBA, and M.Sc in Mathematics.