Private varsities face funding, logistics challenges
The Garden City University College has held its 5th annual congregation at Kenyasi in the Ashanti Region.
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Six hundred and one students were presented with degrees after pursuing a four-year study programme at the college.
The ceremony was on the theme: “Developing the Next Generation of Innovators; the role of Health Sciences”.
Speaking at the event, a former Chief Executive of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, said the major challenge facing private universities was lack of funding and logistics.
He underscored the need for the government to consider making funds from the GETFund available to private universities for critical development and research to boost the value of human capital development in the country.
He said private universities in the country were non-profit making institutions and, therefore, any money they made was used to develop infrastructure, ensure human capital development and sustain the institutions.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng was of the view that it was important for the government to continue to exempt private universities from the payment of corporate tax to boost human capital development in the country.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng said there were no adequate preparations to integrate the herbal medicine practitioners into the mainstream hospital service as was originally anticipated, a situation that continued to be a source of discouragement and frustration to many graduates and their relatives.
He said statistics from the Ministry of Health showed that the average physician-patient ratio was 13 physicians per 100,000 patients as against the ratio of 256 physicians per 100,000 in the USA.
Dr Wilhelmina Donkoh, President of the university, said the core objective of the university was to train the youth to perform creditably towards the attainment of the middle level income status.
Dr Donkoh said the university was committed to offer quality education through different modes of academic delivery, which were now attracting the working public in the areas of banking, insurance, health and security with some students coming from the country’s neighbouring counties.
By John K. Essel/Daily Graphic/Ghana