The Distinguish Scholars of Africa (DISTINSA) in collaboration with the International Standards Journalism (ISJA) will soon introduce the maiden free Universal Broadcast University for journalists in the country.

The programme will be an online, on air and accessible by radio, television, video where participants can tune in and take scheduled courses just like the normal university and accessible to different local languages for those who cannot speak English.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, President of DISTINSA-ISJA, Dr Nana Oppong said their outfit was hoping to start the programme latest in March 2018, and have started the process of contacting various universities abroad for affiliation and accreditation.

He said the programme would be an online platform for journalist to register as a student and be issued with an ID card and provided with a schedule to know when to tune in the radio or download the podcast for your course.

Dr Oppong explained that that programme would enable lecturers to lecture on videos just like the normal university, except that you don’t go to the normal classroom for lectures, since it is online.

“We believe that increasing the journalists access to education and enabling them to have excellent knowledge without having to pay for it will increase their capacity to deliver, inform and technically correct and ensure best reportage”, he added.

“We are pioneering the process of free, standardise universal education for Ghanaians as part of our corporate social responsibility in that access to education should be a basic necessity and human rights but not a privilege”.

He said journalists in the country must have unlimited access to Universities to help raise the level of awareness of the community.

This, he said, was the foundation of development and the path towards greater nation-building.

Dr Oppong said there is the need to educate journalists at the highest level through universities or university-type educations to enrich the minds and hearts of tribes and increase the quality and depth of their impact to society.

"We must remove money as a barrier to higher education. We all need higher education to be learned, competitive and be more conscious if our duty of care towards one another".