Research into COVID-19 pandemic - VC charges graduate students

The Vice Chancellor (VC) of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Professor Johnson Nyarko-Boampong, has charged graduates to take up the challenge of researching into the COVID-19 pandemic to help find a lasting solution to the problem.

Research and COVID-19

Prof. Nyarko-Boampong urged the graduates to continue researching in their various fields of academic endeavour in a bid to end the pandemic.

"Your graduation also comes at a time when the world has been ravaged by the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic," he said and urged them to help find a solution to the pandemic.

He further urged them to put their research findings to practical and innovative use as it could be commercialised for the benefit of society.

Entrepreneurial challenge

Touching on entrepreneurial development, Prof. Nyarko-Boampong stated that considering the present pandemic the world was battling, it was prudent graduates took the initiative of establishing themselves without relying on white-collar institutions for employment.

In his address at the fourth session of the 53rd congregation of the university, the VC noted that "the world is confronted with a pandemic for the first time in a century, making life quite uncomfortable", stressing the need for the graduates to be entrepreneurial and innovative.

53rd Congregation

The university held its 53rd congregation in four sessions at the Cape Coast Stadium on Thursday and Friday at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

"You should be inspired to make the most out of it without waiting for anyone as you have been well groomed to face the world and take up the challenge," Prof. Nyarko-Boampong emphasised.

He said graduates would be facing a world that was "on a battlefield", hence the need to brace themselves for the uncertainties and make their encounter with the world worthwhile by being innovative with the knowledge that they had acquired.

Graduate School

Prof. Nyarko-Boampong indicated that the School of Graduate Studies, in collaboration with the Sam Jonah Library, was about to implement the electronic submission of thesis/dissertation.

 "We have plan to have fully integrated and robust system where the process from the supervision stage, involving the student and supervisor, right down to the final submission of thesis, will be electronic-based," he stated.

On graduate education development, he said the university would continue to mobilise the needed resources to build the needed infrastructure that would create more access to postgraduate education and augment scholarships to postgraduate students.

He said as part of its policy review, the School of Graduate Studies would increase the drive for article-based thesis, which served as an option, to the main traditional monograph thesis version, saying with that policy, to satisfy the requirement for the award of a doctorate degree, a student should have at least three articles published or accepted for publication.

For a master’s thesis, a student should have at least one article published or accepted for publication.

Nduom University

Prof. Nyarko-Boampong said the university had adopted the Nduom School of Business and Technology (NSBT) as a satellite campus of the UCC for the 2020/2021 academic year, adding that a memorandum of understanding had been signed between the two institutions to that effect.

That, he noted, implied that some of the fresh students to be admitted into the School of Business for the 2020/2021 academic year would be accommodated to pursue their studies at the Nduom School of Business and Technology campus.

The Chairman of the University of Cape Coast’s Governing Council, Mrs Nancy Thompson, charged the graduates to be worthy examples wherever they found themselves.