Cape Cost, April 24, GNA - An eight-member Edit Board of the Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) of the University of Cape Coast was on Tuesday inaugurated to improve upon the quality and quantity of its current modules for the distant education programme.

The Board, chaired by Professor Kobina Yankson, immediate past Pro Vice Chancellor of the university is to, among other things, establish an assessment criterion for the CCE module and to oversee the publication of the CCE module as well as edit or nominate experts to edit the module.

An 18-member reconstituted Advisory Board for the centre chaired by Prof. Haruna Yakubu, Pro Vice chancellor of UCC was also inaugurated. In his inaugural address, Prof. Yakubu underscored the importance the CCE attached to the Distant Education Programme of UCC, adding that, since its inception 10 years ago, it had provided opportunities for people to pursue higher education in the country, train more professional teachers for all levels of education as well as provide opportunities for applicants, who even though qualified for admission failed to enter the universities due to lack of constraints in physical facilities.

Prof. Yakubu said, since 2000, delivery of the programme was mainly by print mode and face-to-face interaction and in all 91 modules made up of five education and 36 business courses were been used by students and plans were far advanced to introduce new ones. He however, expressed concern about the facts that the modules written by experts from the University have not been published and instituted in their copyrights.

Prof. Yakubu in this regard stressed the need to act strictly to develop all the modules to an internationally acceptable standard with copyright so that they become bonafide property of the school. " As a university that appreciate scholarship, we are very cautious and critical about copyright and plagiarism law and also want to guard at any infringement on these laws which would result in court actions and derail the hard own positive image of UCC". He tasked the board members to live up to expectations and bring their rich experiences and commitment and responsiveness to bear on their work.

Prof. Haruna Yakubu, Chairman of the Centre said the centre currently had a population of 20,000 adding, " These people will have been waiting in queues to gain admission". " The current enrolment about 18,000 into one campus at the UCC, the 38,000 total enrolment represent three separate Universities, so here at UCC, we virtually have three universities in one". He said the task of the board was enormous but pledged that everything would be done to ensure the success of the centre and appealed to UCC to provide the needed support to enable them to work effectively.

Prof. James Adu-Opare Dean, Faculty of Education who presided, commended UCC for introducing the Distance Education Programme, which he said, had admitted many youth into the university. He said UCC would remain a centre of excellence and the Distance Education Programme, the best in West Africa and stressed that, with the improvement of the module it would give UCC a further boost. Prof. Opare urged the board members to critically look at the module and roll them over as executive masterpiece since they would be used for the rest of West Africa.