Minister of Education, Mr. Lee Ocran, has chastised the Kumasi branch of the Polytechnic Teachers’ Association for misconstruing the National Democratic Congress (NDC) manifesto promise to grant autonomy to polytechnics in awarding degrees.
At the launch of the party’s manifesto in Ho last week President John Mahama assured that as a policy of the party, polytechnics across the country will be upgraded to award their own degrees.
But the Kumasi branch of POTAG has described the promise as sheer propaganda saying polytechnics already have degree-awarding programmes.
Speaking to XYZ NEWS on Tuesday, the Kumasi Representative of the Association, Mr. Edmund Oppong Peprah, says the intended policy has already been implemented and that they are skeptical about the president’s vision for the schools.
Mr. Oppong Peprah appealed to all political parties to carry out adequate research regarding tertiary education in order not to make similar errors.
But in a swift attempt to put the issues into the right perspective, Mr. Lee Ocran told XYZ News the teachers got it all wrong. He questioned why the Kumasi branch of POTAG is speaking on the matter when its mother body has not made any official pronouncement
Mr. Ocran says the NDC is looking at an overhaul of all HND programmes and not just a single degree-awarding programme as is the current situation.
“What we are saying is that, we shall help them so that in the coming years they will be well equipped to be able to award degrees in various technical subjects; it is not one technical subject,” he argued.
The Minister said the intention is to build the capacity of the polytechnics to be able to award such academic programmes sanctioned by the National Council for Tertiary Education.
