By Anthony Adongo Apubeo, GNA
Sumbrungu (U/E), April 8, GNA – Professor Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor, Acting Director General, Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), says the Commission is urgently tackling the operations of satellite campuses in second cycle institutions and other unapproved venues by traditional universities to protect technical universities.
He said the operations and increasing number of the satellite campuses by the traditional universities in such unapproved areas were negatively affecting the growth and development of the technical universities in the country and the Commission had warned such universities to cease operations.
“One of the biggest issues that we face and one that has affected technical universities negatively, has been the over proliferation of satellite campuses by most of the traditional universities.
“It is of no surprise that at Bolgatanga Senior High School, you have about five institutions running what is termed as ‘distance education’ programmes and GTEC is tackling this issue and as part of the processes of working on it, we have asked all these institutions to cease operations of satellite campuses,” he said.
The Acting Director General, who made this disclosure at the 12th congregation of the Bolgatanga Technical University at Sumbrungu in the Upper East Region, said technical education was pivotal to the growth of the economy and GTEC was working to protect them and improve the quality of teaching and learning.
“Indeed, I am happy to announce that the GTEC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with about six institutions to cease the admission of students into about 210 satellite campuses moving forward.
“We believe this will give the technical universities the opportunities to also attract these students that mostly would have been in these satellite campuses,” he added.
As part of protecting technical universities across the country, GTEC had established a Policy Advisory Committee tasked with the mandate of ensuring that all new applications for programmes by universities were within the niche areas of the said universities and did not also feed into the already saturated Ghanaian economy.
“This is important because often times, we find these well-endowed traditional universities operating and veering into programmes that naturally would not have been within their mandate…GTEC is very committed to ensuring that if technical education as being professed to be the engine for socioeconomic development of this country, then it is important for all technical universities in this country to be protected,” he said.
On improving quality of tertiary education, he indicated, GTEC this year, would organise the first of its kind Tertiary Education Conference for major stakeholders to brainstorm on strategies to address challenges facing tertiary education.
Professor Samuel Erasmus Alnaa, Vice Chancellor of the University, said the University was repositioning itself to become globally preferred centre for technical vocational and training education and relevant contributor to the socioeconomic growth of Ghana and beyond.
As result, he said, the University had introduced 17 more programmes at various levels including five Master of Science (MSc) programmes in Agriculture, its niche area, to empower students to find practical solutions to challenges of society.
“We are rekindling our collaboration with the University of Ouagadougou. The collaboration was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This will see the exchange of staff and students from both universities.
“We are also collaborating with Cosmos Innovation Centre, the Corporate Social Responsibility wing of Cosmos Energy, for training of young graduates in agribusiness. This programme is aimed at creating, training and empowering ‘Agripreneurs’ to innovate value addition in the agriculture value chain and create jobs. The programme is expected to run for three years, and it is worth US$100,000.00 annually,” he said.
GNA