GOVERNMENT TO SET UP MORE UNIVERSITIES
The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo says the government will
fulfill its pledge of establishing additional state-funded
universities to widen access to tertiary education.
That, he
said, would be done alongside the "improvement of physical and
academic facilities in existing tertiary institutions to increase
their intake and ensure quality delivery".
Mr Tettey-Enyo said
this when he inaugurated the boards and councils of five agencies under
the Ministry of Education in Accra Wednesday.
They are the
boards of trustees of the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), the National
Accreditation Board (NAB), the National Service Board, the National
Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the Ghana Library Board.
The
minister said polytechnic education would be given the needed support
to strengthen the technical and vocational education training (TVET)
system.
"The Ministry of Education is fully engaged in
promoting and supporting the development of a balanced, integrated and
holistic educational system in the country. The government is committed
to marshalling the requisite resources to achieve its agenda for the
educational sector," he said.
In the case of the NAB, he said
the government expected the board to protect the public interest by
adopting pragmatic measures to ensure that quality was not compromised.
He said it should be the responsibility of the board to see to
it that the profit motive of proprietors did not override the provision
of the relevant atmosphere for quality teaching and learning in
institutions.
He charged the National Service Board to
continue with the Graduate Entrepreneurship Development Programme
which had already started and also help to acquire the necessary
logistics to do effective monitoring and evaluation.
"I
would like to urge the board to consider reactivating and
reinvigorating the Military Orientation and Community Improvement Unit
of the scheme," he appealed.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said it was
disheartening to observe that the Ghana Library Board had been without
a board for close to two decades, saying that the expectations of
Ghanaians were for the revival of the culture of reading in schools,
colleges and universities.
He called on the boards and
councils to adhere to the values of independence, objectivity,
proactiveness, co-operation, efficiency and transparency which
characterised the deliberations of the previous boards and councils.
A
former Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and
Technology (KNUST), Prof F.O. Kwami, thanked the government for the
trust it had reposed in the board and council members.
He pledged, on behalf of his colleagues, to carry out the task expected of them.
Source: Daily Graphic.
