Students urged to imbibe truth and moral courage

Senior Minister Joseph Henry Mensah, on Saturday urged students of tertiary institutions to imbibe truth and moral courage as fundamental values in their studies and apply them in their working lives for the benefit of society.

He said the essence of education, especially university education, was the search for the truth, which is not the property of any nation, culture or group of people and the effective application of the values in it to enhance the progress of the individual and the community.

Mr Mensah was speaking at the maiden matriculation ceremony of the Catholic University College of Ghana (CUCG) at Fiapre, near Sunyani in Brong Ahafo.

The University, which began academic work early March this year, offered admissions to 90 candidates out of 140 applicants, but only 54 reported at the opening and due to various reasons four students deferred their courses to reduce the number to 50 students made up of 31 males and 19 females.

The University has begun with three male faculties of Information and Communication Sciences and Technology (ICST), Economics and Business Administration (E & BA) and Religious Studies (RS).

Twenty-four students each are offering ICST and E & BA whilst only two students are studying RS.

Mr Mensah, who is Member of Parliament for Sunyani East, expressed regret that the intellectual emasculation of Ghanaians and Africans in general had been the attribution of everything good to Europeans.

He reminded the students that they had been admitted to be trained and to come out to assist in eradicating that misconception and shape the mind of the society for progress and development.

The pervasive significance of all knowledge was its guidance of action by the individual, he added, saying that the greatest significance of the action was by doing what was worthy of emulation and teaching others to follow.

The Senior Minister expressed the hope that the students would be patriotic enough to serve in their communities for a positive effect of the knowledge they would acquire at the University on the people.

Mr Yaw Adjei Duffour, Deputy Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, reminded the students of the enormity of socio-economic problems facing the region and the country and advised them to take keen interest in helping to develop the communities around by entering into partnerships with them.

Mr Adjei-Duffour urged the students to act as role models to both pupils and students in the region to encourage them to aspire for university education, adding thy could do that by establishing and maintaining high academic standards and leading exemplary lives to inculcate in the young ones a high sense of discipline.

He advised them against student unrests, saying the "aluta virus" of the already established University campuses must not make an in-road at the University.

The Deputy-Regional Minister observed that one thing that would prevent students from the region from entering the University was its high academic user fees.

He expressed the hope that ways would be found to institute scholarship awards for needy students and also to generate some form of employment avenues for students to work and earn some money to meet part of their financial obligations.

The Reverend Father Dr. Michael J. Schultheis, President of the University, advised the students to relegate social vices and all forms of immoral behaviour to the background and concentrate on their academic work with tenacity of purpose.

Dr. Schultheis said that, coupled with hard work would make them to achieve academic success and set objectives in life.

Rev. Fr. Dr. Albert Kuuire and Mr. A. Teddy Konu, Registrars of the CUCG and University of Ghana respectively, jointly administered the matriculation pledge to the students.

The students pledged to abide by the rules of the institution, exhibit truth in their lives on campus and show obedience and respect to all those required, as students of the university.