Education minister inaugurates three university councils
Public universities have been asked to brace themselves for large numbers of tertiary education seekers following the government’s policy of free senior high school (SHS) beginning September 2017.
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The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who stated this, said by the year 2020 when the first batch of the free SHS products would have completed, a lot of pressure would have been brought on universities.
He said this when he inaugurated three University councils at the Education Village at East Legon in Accra last Tuesday.
The universities are the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) which has Professor Emeritus Kwame Sarpong as its Chairman, the University of Cape Coast (UCC) with Mrs Nancy Olufola Cambell Thompson as Chairperson and the University for Development Studies (UDS) Council chaired by Mr Nutifafa Kuenyehia.
Expand access
The council members, who were simultaneously sworn in by the minister, were, therefore, tasked to ensure that the universities provided expanded access to high-quality tertiary education.
“This will go a long way to absorb the higher numbers of SHS graduates that we shall soon have due to the very laudable free SHS policy that government is on course to implement,” Dr Prempeh told the council members.
He further charged them to ensure the implementation of the aims of their respective universities, determine their strategic direction and monitor, as well as evaluate policy implementations.
The minister also tasked them to promote income-generating activities as part of the programmes of the universities and also ensure the appropriate allocation and proper use of funds.
Reviews
Dr Prempeh announced that the ministry had embarked on the legal, institutional and regulatory framework of its agencies to ensure that their roles were properly outlined to provide a clearer understanding of their functions.
He said such an exercise would also strengthen their mandate to perform efficiently.
According to him, the government expected that their leadership would not be one that only identified problems but also proposed workable solutions.
“The solutions you will propose must be those that will ultimately help the universities achieve their goals.
The minister advised them to make professional level appointments on the recommendation of the Appointment Committees of their academic boards as might be determined in the statutes of their respective universities.