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Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa

GETFund has no mandate to build infrastructure in private tertiary institutions

The Deputy Minister of Education in charge of Tertiary Education, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has explained that the ministry does not have the mandate to use funds from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to develop permanent infrastructure in private tertiary institutions.

He said the GETFund Act did not permit that “else we will be held to be doing something illegal if we are to go and invest in infrastructure in a private institution.”

Speaking in an interview on the petition of the Private University Students Association of Ghana (PUSAG) that GETFund resources be used to put up infrastructure such as lecture theatres and hostel facilities, Mr Ablakwa said the Act was clear as to who qualified to benefit from the fund.

GETFund Act

The GETFund Act 2000, Act 581,Section 2A states: “For the purpose of attaining this object, the monies from the fund are to be expended to provide financial support to the agencies and institutions under the Ministry of Education, through the ministry, for the development and maintenance of essential academic facilities and infrastructure in public educational institutions particularly, in tertiary institutions.”

Mr Ablakwa explained that the GETFund, as it stood now, could not support the private tertiary universities and other private tertiary institutions with infrastructure because the ownership of those institutions were vested in the proprietor and not the State as was the case with public educational institutions.

Student fund focused

Mr Ablakwa explained that what successive governments had been doing since the Fourth Republic was that “we invest in the students”, such as donation of GETFund buses for the use of students, scholarships, students’ loans and donation of computers.

“Occasionally, we make donations of GETFund buses for students in private universities to use such that if the owner changes his mind not to operate the university, we can collect the bus and reallocate it to another university. We invest in computers. We give them scholarship and currently there are many students in private universities who are on the GETFund scholarship,” he stressed.

Benefits

He said currently about 6,400 private university students were benefiting from the Students’ Loan Trust, just like their counterparts in the public universities.

“So, you can see that it is not true that private university students are not benefiting from the GETFund. They are benefiting either through scholarship, through student loans, the computers and buses we donate occasionally.

“But asking that we go and build physical properties such as hostels and lecture theatres, the law does not allow us and we do not think that it is wise. It is too risky and even with a future amendment, we are not too sure this can be achieved.

“Apart from the fact that the law does not allow us, it is really also not morally right,” Mr Ablakwa explained.

Proposals

He, therefore, advised the students to come out with a proposal as to how they could access the GETFund more in terms of support to students, beyond whatever the ministry had done, stressing, “once there are ideas which border on the students benefiting directly and not on physical infrastructure, we are fine.” 

Charter

Touching on the charter of private universities, Mr Ablakwa explained that the quality assurance put in place to ensure strict adherence to laid-down rules in the educational sector by private institutions is for the interest of the students.

He explained that charters were not political decisions, but decisions by independent technical bodies made up of the National Accreditation Board (NAB) and the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE).

He said, as of now, the NAB had not forwarded any request for the President to sign the Presidential Charter neither is there any before the Ministry of Education that the ministry had failed to forward to the President.

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