Government to establish new university

The government of Ghana intends to establish a new university in the country as part of reforms being made to tertiary education.

A draft policy document on tertiary education reforms captures, as one of the major priority areas, an “establishment of Open University Ghana”.

An open university is one that has an open-door academic policy, with minimal or no entry requirements which usually employ specific teaching methods, such as open supported learning or distance education.

At a special stakeholder engagement forum for Tertiary Education reforms at the University of Ghana Friday, June 14, on the draft policy document that is intended to shape tertiary education, executive secretary for National Council of Tertiary Education (NCTE), Professor Mohammed Salifu, hinted on the move.

Even though he did not reveal too much about this new university, the policy document prominently features it as one of the focus areas of the Ministry of Education.

Other areas the new policy seeks to address include a draft bill to harmonise the various public universities Acts; a bill which has been widely interpreted as moves by government to control universities. The Minister of Education in charge of Tertiary Education said the bill only seeks to unify the various legislation of the public universities, but not to take over their management.

As part of the reforms, a centralized application and placement service system will also be put in place to consolidate all university admissions in order to make the process equitable.

But some stakeholders have raised concerns about the possibility of universities losing their Internally Generated Funds (IGF) when a centralized system is introduced, but Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh has allayed such fears.

He said, the move will not take away Internally Generated Funds neither will it disrupt the admission criteria of the universities.