Ahead of its expiration this year, the leadership of the Equal Opportunity in Higher Education: Partnership for Institutional Change (EQUIP) project has met to discuss the success of the project and its implementation and the possibility of further collaborations.
The EQUIP project is a four-year collaboration between the Centre for Gender, Research Advocacy, and Documentation (CEGRAD), UCC, and the Freie Universität Berlin which officially started in May 2019.
The project entailed a four-year plan to develop and implement crucial equal opportunity practices at the University of Cape Coast.
It has as its primary objective to realize equal opportunities at UCC by establishing conducive structures and professionalizing actors during the first stage.
It is also aimed to establish UCC as a hub for disseminating equal opportunities, knowledge, and good institutional practices in Africa. It started with a pilot partnership with Kenyatta University (KU) in the third year.
The principal investigator of EQUIP in UCC, Professor Akua Opokua Britwum, explained to ATL FM news the progress the team has made so far and said the project had been very successful from 2019 to 2022 with teamwork being the key success of the project.
Giving details of the project she said “we know that in universities, experiences of women and men are not the same. And so certain things stand in the way of women achieving their dreams… So we are looking at how the universities can support women in carrying out their functions and duties within the Universities and it goes beyond that.”
As such, she said the four-year project has been a period of learning and training between the participating universities through which UCC has been able to develop manuals and engaged in training.
“The whole point is to look at how it can be institutionalized” she continued
To the Principal investigator of the project at the Freie Universität Berlin, Professor Dr. Gülay Çağlar, even as the team is wrapping up the project, the project’s implementation is of much concern.
She said “we have developed each step in a very thoughtful manner. So we started, by contextualizing everything with first of all finding out what is needed in the context of UCC in order to promote gender equality. We have done a SWOT analysis, we have developed a training manual to train the trainers, and are now at a stage to finalize the gender Action plan and then we will come to the implementation. So everything has been developed so far and the question now is whether each of the university members are willing to also support CEGRAD in realizing the goals that have been developed and formulated. I think this is key because otherwise, it would be sad if we wouldn’t be able to really have a change because this project is actually about promoting change in terms of gender equality.”
Meanwhile, The Director of the International Affairs Division of Freie Universität Berlin, Dr. Herbert Grieshop who was at the meeting to assess the project expressed his satisfaction stating that even as UCC has positioned itself as one of the best Universities in the world, the Freie Universität Berlin will be willing to have wider collaborations with UCC to further strengthen the relationship that exists between the two Universities.
On his part, the Dean of the Office of International Relations at UCC, Professor Kwaku Boakye commended the team for working hard to ensure the project’s success.
He added that his outfit is willing to provide the needed support towards any further initiative.
As part of the meeting, visits were made to the respective offices of the Provost of the College of Humanities and Legal Studies at UCC, Professor Kwame Osei Kwarteng as well as the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at UCC, Professor Akwasi Kumi-Kyereme to hold interactions with them over the progress of the project.
EQUIP is funded by the program DIES- Partnerships with Higher Educations Institutions in Developing Countries by The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
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Source: Rosemond Asmah / ATLFMNEWS
