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The University of Cape Coast (UCC) is to nurture all the 38 Colleges of Education in the country into stronger tertiary institutions to turn out quality teachers to meet emerging manpower needs in the education sector. Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, Vice-Chancellor of UCC, who announced this on Friday at the 40th congregation of the UCC, noted that the Institute of Education has over the years nurtured the then teacher training schools and was "poised to nurture the newly established colleges into maturity". It had in that regard reviewed the colleges' curriculum for the award of diploma and was awaiting response from the Ministry of Education to implement the plan. She enumerated some of the strategies the faculty of education had evolved to help address the problem of staff development needs of the colleges as the development of a "sandwich" Master of Philosophy (MPhil) programmes in various subject areas to begin in 2010, among others. The UCC's Institute of Education had also signed an agreement with the Tennessee's Board of Regents to collaborate in a programme to improve the quality of teaching and teacher education in Ghana. Prof. Opoku-Agyemang pointed out that since the establishment of the colleges, the UCC has effectively played a critical role in the design of curricula, supervised teaching, run workshops to sharpen the skills of tutors, approved the examinations and awarded certificates and was therefore better placed to nurture them. "The UCC intends to maintain and strengthen its relationship with the colleges of Education so that in the near future, they will be regarded as Colleges of the University of Cape Coast" she declared. On the activities of the University, she said the School of Agriculture for instance would soon offer UCC branded products for sale to the university community and the public. In a speech read for him, Mr. Alex Tettey-Enyo, Minister of Education, said government would give serious attention to science and technology education and was therefore in the process of instituting scholarship grants for top performing students in tertiary institutions in the area. He announced that the science and technology workshops for girls will be restored while the ministry will also revamp the science resource centres in selected schools to lay a solid foundation for students before reaching tertiary realm. Mr. Tettey-Enyo said it had become necessary to revamp the entire educational system to make it more responsive to the nation's development needs and aspirations therefore; the National Accreditation Board will be revised to monitor the quality of tertiary education.