The outgoing President of the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG), Mr. Joseph Kofi Boakye has observed that though it may be realistic to say that students in tertiary institutions should pay tuition fees, the idea being put forward should be shelved for the meantime.
Considering how parents struggle before paying even the academic facility user fee, it will be super-flous to say that many students will drop out of tertiary institutions when they are coerced to accept to pay the fees, he said.
Boakye, who was speaking at the 7th annual national delegates conference of POTAG and 4th handing over ceremony at Takoradi Polytechnic last Thursday, dismissed the notion that tertiary education is a privilege and that beneficiaries must be made to bear whatever goes with it.
He insisted that tertiary education is a constitutional right.
The reason for this assertion is that since all citizens have the moral duty to serve the country in whatever capacity they find themselves, they must consequentially have the moral right to attain whatever level of education they are capable of to enable them serve effectively, he said adding that no impediment should be put in the way of any Ghanaian who has the capacity to attain any level of education.
To enable as many people as possible to benefit from tertiary education, he suggested that mechanisms be put in place to fund it by example asking those who have benefited from tertiary education to pay a percentage of their income each month to support tertiary education.
Employers who make use of the primary products of tertiary education should also pay a certain percentage of their net profit to sustain tertiary education, he added.
Boakye also complained bitterly about how the polytechnics have been cast in the role of underdogs, to quote his own words for tertiary educational system.
According to him, there is no trust for them that they have contribution to make to change the fortunes of the country as policy makers appear to think that they should just exist to satisfy a condition.
We would like to caution all well-meaning Ghanaians that with the current developments in the world economy, if the polytechnics are neglected as is being done, Ghana, and for that matter Ghanaians, would be worse off, he warned.
