Accra, April 18, GNA – Vice Chancellors of Public, Private and Technical Universities in Ghana have pledged to support the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, to transform and develop the country through education.
The Chairmen of the Vice Chancellors who made the announcement, said they would support the planning, promotion and implementation of strategic policies that sought to transform the development of education leading to the country’s socio-economic development.
The VC’s gave the assurance at separate ceremonies when they paid a courtesy call on Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, in Accra on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The visits were aimed at congratulating the Minister on his elevation to a substantive Minister of Education and also discuss issues that would help improve education in the country.
Again, each leadership of all the three categories of Universities used the occasion to make a case which was peculiar to them to help bring about changes and improvement on their campuses.
The Vice Chancellor for University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), Prof. John Owusu Gyapong, Chairman of Vice Chancellors of Ghana, on behalf of his colleagues, stated that, the universities would ensure that the vision of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was achieved for the betterment of the country.
Prof. Gyapong lamented the irresponsiveness of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GetFund) in terms of the release of funds and completion of projects started in the various tertiary institutions over the years, leading to congestion which did not augur well for effective teaching and learning.
The Chairman of the VC’s appealed to the government to provide more infrastructure in all tertiary institutions in the country to meet the increasing intake due to the Free Senior High School (FSHS) initiative.
He appealed to the Minister and for that matter the government to suspend the Public Universities Bill till the right measures and concerns raised by all stakeholders are resolved.
The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, on his part, commended the VC’s for their roles in the attainment of quality education over the years as well as the training of the manpower needs of the country.
He urged the Universities to rekindle their research activities since research played very crucial role in addressing the challenges of society.
Dr Adutwum called on the Universities to redouble their effort towards improving the nation’s Gross Tertiary Enrollment Ratio (GTER) which (currently at 18.8 per cent) was very crucial in the training of the right manpower for the industrial sector as well as other sectors of the economy.
He again appealed to all stakeholders in the nation’s education sector to contribute their quota towards improving the GTER which held the key to the nation’s socio-economic development.
The Education Minister assured the VC’s of efforts being made by the Government towards improving infrastructure in all tertiary institutions to enhance effective teaching and learning.
“There is the need for you to collaborate with industry in the training of the right manpower for the nation so that graduates from your institutions would easily be employed without much a difficulty”.
This, he said, could be done by engaging industry in the planning of their academic programmes and other activities that contributed towards the training of their students to meet the 21st century needs of the job market.
GNA