The Institute for Educational Planning and Administration here at the University of Cape Coast has officially been launched as a UNESCO category II center of excellence.
Speaking at the official launch a representative of UNESCO to Ghana Abdulerame Diallo indicated that the world needs more institutions such as the IEPA to be innovative enough to address the numerous challenges confronting the educational systems. He urged the IEPA to work diligently to enhance its work to enable them provide the highest quality in research and education.
“Governments and development partners are looking for institutions such as the IEPA to come up with innovative solutions through well-grounded science research to solve many of the challenges that our educational systems are facing which have been worsened by COVID 19. To be able to rise to the challenge IEPA needs to enhance the capacity of its own faculty to enable it provide high quality capacity building support and research to its clients” he stressed.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast Professor Johnson Nyarko Boampong noted the elevation comes with a lot of responsibilities for the university and IEPA. He urged IEPA to build their capacity, grow and contribute to the development of the country.
“We expect that today that we have officially elevated IEPA to this level, we expect them to grow to build the capacity and bare fruits for us to see. It means that much is expected of IEPA and not only IEPA but the University of Cape Coast. We need to play our roles very well for Ghana to succeed” he added.
The Director-General of IEPA Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom on his part expressed gratitude to government, UNESCO and the University of Cape Coast for their contributions towards their achievements. He indicated the IEPA will use such collaborations to work towards the achievement of SDG 4.
“We are grateful to the former and current governments of Ghana, former and current leadership at the ministry of education, former and current vice chancellors of UCC, their management team, and former directors of IEPA for their selfless contributions and support for IEPA. IEPA values its UCC, Ministry of Education and UNESCO affiliations and with our building bridges relationships matter campaign we are optimistic that together with strategic planning, we will achieve the sustainable development goal 4” Dr. Boakye-Yiadom stated.
The Category 2 institutes and centers under UNESCO are a global network of institutions of excellence in the Organization’s domains of competence. Given their expertise, these institutes and centers contribute to the implementation of UNESCO’s strategic priorities, programmes, and global development agendas, through international and regional cooperation, research, and capacity development.
Source: Vera Siripi/ATLFMNEWS
