Cape Coast, Oct. 2, GNA - Professor Emmanuel Adow Obeng, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), on Saturday said the institution admitted 4,761 undergraduates, out of 16,000 candidates, who applied for the 2005-06 academic year. He stated that this year's intake, representing 12.6 percent increase over last year's admission, was the highest in the history of the University.

Prof Obeng, who was speaking at the matriculation ceremony of the university, said this year's admission gives a male-female ratio of approximately two to one.

He explained that out the total intake, 3,129 representing 65.7 percent and 1,632 representing 34.3 percent are males and females respectively, as against last year's admission of 2,891 representing 68.3 percent and 1,339, representing 31.7 percent for men and women respectively.

The Vice-Chancellor said the increase in the percentage of female admission this year was in line with a strategic plan of the university, and in conformity with the norms of the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) towards achieving 50/50 ratio in future.

Prof Obeng stated that the university admitted 17 students into the Ph. D, 172 for the Masters and 229 for Diploma programmes. It also admitted 632, as against 427 last year through its Science remedial course, 97 from deprived schools and 358 mature students.

According to him, with this year's total intake of 5,170 fresh students, the total enrolment for all programmes in UCC is now 31,229, made up of 16,908 regular students, 1,247 sandwich students, 74 Africa Virtual students (AVU) and 13,000 distance education students. He said as agreed at a meeting of Vice-Chancellors in April this year, the cut-off point for public universities shall be aggregate 20 with effect from the 2006-07 academic year.

He said it was unfair to parents of students with aggregates between 21 and 24 to purchase university admission forms, which are not cheap, when the likelihood of their wards getting admission was minimal. He however cautioned that not all students with aggregates between 6 and 20, who apply would automatically be admitted into the UCC, stressing that, the cut off points for the various programmes would still apply.

However, the university would continue to maintain a quota for students from less endowed and deprived schools, he added. The Vice-Chancellor said it was unfortunate that, the "in-out-out-in" residential policy of the university, devised to help address the problem of accommodation for students was being abused. According to him, most of the final year students, who had accommodation outside the university campus, sold their bed spaces for 2.5 million cedis to fresh students, when they had grudgingly paid 800,000 cedis as residential user fee.

He said the dean of students had been mandated to hold consultations with student leaders to review the current accommodation policy.

He said plans were far advanced to solve the accommodation problem of the university, and that the Ghana Hostels Company would soon start a second phase of its hostel project on the campus. He said the GETFund would also start the construction of a student hostel on the campus by next year.