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Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman, the Minister of Education, has expressed worry over the lack of respect for norms and standards pertaining to academic work by some tertiary institutions in the country. She said the Ministry was working with the National Accreditation Board (NAB) and National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) to ensure that the images of good institutions in the country were not damaged since qualifications from universities in Ghana were respected for their quality. The Minister said this in an address read on her behalf at the 47th Congregation of the University of Cape Coast during which 6,029 students were awarded degrees from the Centre for Continuing Education (CCE) during the 2012/2013. The programmes include Diploma in Basic Education, Diploma in Psychology and Foundation of Education, Diploma in Education, Diploma in management studies, Diploma in Commerce, Bachelor in Psychology and foundation of education, Bachelor in commerce, Bachelor Management studies and Bachelor in marketing. Prof. Opoku-Agyeman said she was pleased to note that UCC was not only concerned about the same issue but had actually taken steps in the recent past to protect its image both on the main campus and in all the institutions its mentors. She commended the University for providing alternative means of increasing access to university education through distance learning mode and urged them not to relent on the core values of ensuring quality. She lauded plans by the University to expand the distance learning programme by upgrading the CCE to a college status to enable it take responsibility, offer its own planning and raise distance education delivery to a higher level. The Minster said the expansion would improve the mode of delivery to include teleconferencing , radio broadcast , E-Learning and that improved internet facilities would enable the college beam live lectures from the university to all study centres to enable students receive instructions directly from the college. Prof Opoku-Agyeman commended the University for the judicious use of its internally generated income which she said was used to finance and implement the intended expansion and changes. The Executive Secretary of NCTE, Prof. Mahama Duweija, commended members of UTAG for their approach towards issues regarding the Book and Research Allowance and assured them of the council�s efforts in ensuring that their concerns were addressed. Pro Duweija dispelled claims that students of distance education were inferior to the regular students adding that the distance education had given opportunity to many workers who by the demand of their jobs or distance could not have furthered their education. The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Domwini D. Kuupole, said an E-learning platform for the delivery of academic programmes was almost completed exccept with the setting up of electronic servers and equipment and that hopefully by the end of 2014, when installation is completed, delivery of post graduate undergraduate courses would be facilitated through the E-learning platform. He said UCC in collaboration with the Distance Education Students Association of Ghana (DESAG) was planning to procure tablet computers for all distance education students on credit to assist students to launch a new era of learning with Information Communication Technology (ICT) as well as facilitate academic work. Prof Kuupole said the plan, expected to be executed by the commencement of the next academic year, would coincide with the commissioning of the e-Learning platform and that there were plans to review and digitize learning modules so that distance education students would no longer be required to travel around study centres with large volumes of modules but just a small iPad. He said the university was in the process of integrating data on distance students onto the main university database and by this feat, it was expected that students on distance learning will soon access their academic materials such as their modules, electronically. Prof. Kuupole said starting from the 2014/2015 academic year, the university will open 12 new study centres at Axim, Enchi, Kasoa, Nandom, Lawra, Asankragwa, Bimbilla, Bawku, Dodowa, Navrongo and Akosombo to make access to learning centres readily close to teachers and public sector workers who wish to further their studies but still stay close to their places of work.