Govt to set up more public-funded varsities

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June 11, 2009

THE Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, says the government will fulfil its pledge of establishing additional state-funded universities to widen access to tertiary education.
That, he said, would be done alongside the "improvement of physical and academic facilities in existing tertiary institutions to increase their intake and ensure quality delivery".
Mr Tettey-Enyo said this when he inaugurated the boards and councils of five agencies under the Ministry of Education in Accra yesterday.
They are the boards of trustees of the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), the National Accreditation Board (NAB), the National Service Board, the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the Ghana Library Board.
The minister said polytechnic education would be given the needed support to strengthen the technical and vocational education training (TVET) system.
"The Ministry of Education is fully engaged in promoting and supporting the development of a balanced, integrated and holistic educational system in the country. The government is committed to marshalling the requisite resources to achieve its agenda for the educational sector," he said.
In the case of the NAB, he said, the government expected the board to protect the public interest by adopting pragmatic measures to ensure that quality was not compromised.
He said it should be the responsibility of the board to see to it that the profit motive of proprietors did not override the provision of the relevant atmosphere for quality teaching and learning in institutions.
He charged the National Service Board to continue with the Graduate Entrepreneurship Development Programme which had already started and also help to acquire the necessary logistics to do effective monitoring and evaluation.
"I would like to urge the board to consider reactivating and reinvigorating the Military Orientation and Community Improvement Unit of the scheme," he appealed.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said it was disheartening to observe that the Ghana Library Board had been without a board for close to two decades, saying that the expectations of Ghanaians were for the revival of the culture of reading in schools, colleges and universities.
He called on the boards and councils to adhere to the values of independence, objectivity, proactiveness, co-operation, efficiency and transparency which characterised the deliberations of the previous boards and councils.
A former Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Prof F.O. Kwami, thanked the government for the trust it had reposed in the boards and council members.
He pledged, on behalf of his colleagues, to carry out the task expected of them.