The Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, Prof. Carl Stychin has paid a week-long visit to MountCrest University College during which he held extensive discussions with the senior management of MountCrest, led by the Rector, Ms. Irene Ansa-Asare.
The discussions centred on a wide range of potential areas for collaboration including academic qualifications, professional training, and research. Plans for the future include a programme by which legal academics in Commonwealth Africa can study part time in order to obtain doctoral qualifications from the University of London while based primarily in their home institutions.
Collaborations between IALS and MountCrest over the last two years have led to the very successful delivery of short courses on law for professionals, offered remotely from London.
Prof. Stychin visited the proposed new campus for MountCrest at Larteh. He also met with the Founder of MountCrest and its current Dean of Law, Mr. Kwaku Ansa-Asare, as well as students, staff, and the media from 16th to 20th May.
The IALS Director also held talks with His Excellency, John Agyekum Kufuor, former President of Ghana; Chief Justice Kwasi Anin-Yeboah of the Supreme Court of Ghana; and legendary legal figure and IALS alumni, Nana SKB Asante, who is also the Chairman of the Board of the Ghana Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (GIALS), as well as the Executive Secretary of GIALS, Professor Edmund Ato Kwaw.
Prof. Stychin also had the opportunity to meet Justice Sir Dennis Adjei of the Court of Appeal of Ghana, who will be the Inns of Court Visiting Judicial Fellow at IALS in 2023.
Professor Stychin stated that, ‘the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies has a long history of engagement with legal education in Ghana and it looks forward to building on those traditions in a modern context through its relationship with MountCrest University College. MountCrest is an ambitious, independent and progressive force in Ghanaian higher education. This trip has made it abundantly clear that there is so much that we can do together’.
Ms. Ansa-Asare expressed her gratitude to Professor Stychin for the visit, saying that, ‘the discussions at the various meetings during your short but important trip point to a future of very successful collaborations for the mutual benefits of our two institutions’.
MountCrest University College (MCU) is a private institution for higher education in Ghana, established in August 2008 by lawyer and professional legal educator, Mr. Kwaku Ansa-Asare and his wife, Mrs. Helena Ansa-Asare. MCU was granted accreditation by the National Accreditation Board (now the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission), to run programmes in Law, Publishing, Public Health, and Health Services Management both at the graduate and undergraduate levels.
The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies was founded in 1947. It was conceived and is funded as a national academic institution, attached to the University of London, serving all universities through its national legal research library. Its function is to promote, facilitate and disseminate the results of advanced study and research in the discipline of law, for the benefit of persons and institutions in the UK and abroad.