‘Sustained public education is key to Ebola prevention’

A massive public education and awareness-creation drive is the only effective weapon Ghana can use to prevent Ebola, as well as deal with the prevailing cholera situation in the country.

Professor Clement K. Dzidonu, President of the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT) made the observation in a press statement issued to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the joint occasion of the Institute’s 7th Congregation and 2014 Matriculation ceremony held in Accra on Friday.

“We owe it to ourselves to put all our efforts into understanding the Ebola and the Cholera phenomena by taking urgent and aggressive steps to raise awareness and educate the public on how to detect and prevent their spread, as well as put in place effective mitigating plans at the national, community, organizational, household and individual levels.

“From what is happening in some of our sister countries in the sub-region, we as a nation, have got enough ebola warning shots and alerts on the devastation that this disease can cause if we don’t educate ourselves on how to prevent it”, he said, adding that Ghanaians would only have themselves to blame if they failed to heed the famous adage which says prevention is better than cure.

Prof Dzidonu announced that AIT as part of its social responsibility commitments, had already started this process in earnest by mounting an education and awareness campaign on Ebola and cholera through public lectures, videos, fact-sheets and flyers on its campuses and in the surrounding communities and as well as in a number of tertiary institutions and schools in selected localities in Accra.

He said based on the success of this campaign, the AIT’s Students Representative Council (SRC) was about to launch a nationwide campaign to distribute in the first instance over 20,000 factsheets and flyers to educate the public on Ebola and Cholera.

They will be targeting tertiary institutions, schools, hospitals, churches, work places and other public avenues throughout the country, and would partner with institutions in other parts of the country to assist in the rapid distribution process.

Dedicated websites have also been launched by the students to use the Internet and other social media resources to engage the youth to spread the word, he added.

“I am confident that our youth can play a leading role in educating the public and raising awareness on how the nation can be battle-ready to confront Ebola if it ever lands on our shores.

“Given that we now have over 60 tertiary institutions in Ghana not forgetting the 100s of second cycle institutions, the youth of these institutions can be sensitised and mobilized to follow the lead provided by the SRC of AIT to assist in the fight against Cholera and preventing the incidence and the spread of Ebola in Ghana.

In all, 201 graduates were awarded with degrees at the ceremony.

They comprised 80 Master’s Degree, 44 DTech and 77 CTech certificate recipients.

Prof Dzidonu announced that AIT was offering postgraduate programmes at the Professor Francis Allotey Graduate School, as well as a range of Master’s degree programmes in Project Management, Engineering, Education, Human Resource Management, Information Technology, Business Administration; Multimedia Communications among others.

It also offered PhD programmes in Engineering, Education, Information Technology and Business Administration, and currently had close to 300 PhD students and candidates, making AIT a leading postgraduate research institution in the country.

Prof Dzidonu congratulated the graduates on their achievement, and expressed the confidence that the University was delivering products that could compete and do well in the local and the international job market.

He also acknowledged the key role played by our campus-based and open university faculty and staff, as well as colleague Professors and Deans saying he would continue to count on their academic leadership to move the institution to the next level.

“We at AIT will endeavour to maintain high standards by mounting industry-relevant and internationally benchmarked programs that will stand the test of time in the modern job market”, he stated.

On his part Professor Francis K. Allotey, Chairman of the AIT Board Of Trustees indicated that in its resolve to deliver world-class campus-based and open university education, the Institute had established direct affiliation with many world-class universities, but more closely with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the Open University of Malaysia.

It had also maintained collaborative relations with several top class universities across the world including the world-class Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) of the USA, he added.

“Our objective in all these relationships is to acquire the state-of-art and the best learning, teaching, and research resources and materials for our students.

We believe that it is the most effective way, and the best way AIT has chosen to deliver world-class education for the benefit of our students.”

He noted with satisfaction that so far all indicators pointed to the fact that AIT was meeting a number of the envisaged milestones as a young and growing dynamic institution which "is showing all the good early signs of becoming a world-class university".