Graduate Students ask gov't not to shirk responsibility

The Graduate Students' Association of Ghana (GRASAG) on Wednesday said it was alarmed at government's insistence on implementing the full cost recovery policy in tertiary institutions.

"We, as students, view with grave concern the negative implications of such a policy on the economic and human capital development of the country," they said in a six-point communiqu? issued at their just ended congress held in Accra on the theme, "Funding Tertiary Education in Ghana".

They said implementing such a policy to its letter would be tantamount to denying many Ghanaians access to postgraduate education in particular and university education in general.

"Congress acknowledges the fact that postgraduate education is expensive. However, because postgraduate education is basically research oriented and therefore of strategic importance to the socio-economic, industrial and technological development of the nation, government should not shirk its responsibility to this sub-sector of tertiary education," it added.

The communiqu? urged government to put in place incentives for industries and other corporate bodies that would support graduate research programmes in the universities.

They also suggested that conditions of service and remuneration of university lecturers should be improved to retain young lecturers and attract young and dynamic postgraduate students to take up teaching appointments.