Recruitment of youthful faculty members a necessity

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THE Director of the Institute of Adult Education of the University of Ghana, Prof Yaw Oheneba-Sakyi, has called on tertiary institutions to develop innovative systems to recruit young faculty members.
According to him, the issue of ageing faculty was one of the major challenges facing tertiary institutions in the country, hence the need to adopt programmes that would encourage young people to get on board.
Prof Oheneba-Sakyi made the call on Tuesday when he presented a paper on, “Access and Equity on Tertiary Education Provision” at the ongoing New Year School at the University of Ghana.
He said it was through tertiary education that the country could bridge the gap between it and the developed world, adding that there was the need to give it the necessary support to deliver.
Giving a brief historical background of the advent of formal education in the country, he said formal education started with the European Christian missionary schools to train children of Europeans and Mulattos, as well as train and convert Africans to Christianity.
Prof Oheneba-Sakyi mentioned some of the early mission schools as the Presbyterian Training College at Akropong, Mfantsipim School, Wesley College, St Augustine’s College, OLA Training College, among others.
He said churches continued to influence the development of education in the country and that with the Ghana Education Act of 1960, the government assumed financial responsibility for formal education.
Subsequently, he said, the establishment of universities started with the University of Ghana, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the University of Cape Coast, the University for Development Studies, among others.
Prof Oheneba-Sakyi said under the Education Sector Reform of the country’s Economic Recovery Programme of the late 1980s, private providers of education were given official permission to establish institutions of higher learning.
The National Accreditation Board (NAB), he said, was, therefore, set up in 1993 to accredit both public and private tertiary institutions for content, standards and management.
“Between 1995-2007, NAB accredited 25 private universities and colleges, 70 per cent of which are religious based. With the exception of the Islamic University College, all the private religious institutions of higher learning are Christian-sponsored,” he explained.
Prof Oheneba-Sakyi said UNESCO had estimated that only 2.6 per cent of all children who entered primary schools eventually made it to the tertiary level, saying that today the demand for higher education was high, resulting in rapid increase in enrolment.
“Enrolment in Ghana’s national universities has increased significantly in the last two decades following the publication of the University Rationalisation Report in 1988. Ghanaian public universities can only offer admission to about 35 per cent of qualified applicants,” he said.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, who chaired the occasion, underscored the need for education to be given the needed attention.