Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo is well aware of the decision of government to convert some polytechnics in the country to technical universities and has not promised a new policy in respect of that should he be voted into power, Prof Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, a former Minister of Education, has explained.
Mr Akufo-Addo was reported to have, while addressing students and lecturers of the Cape Coast Polytechnic on his Central regional tour Friday June 17 criticised President Mahama regarding the “piecemeal” manner in which the upgrade of polytechnics by his government was being done.
“We cannot do this policy piecemeal. Either you are doing it for everybody, or you are not doing it at all. We can’t have a situation where some are picked and some are left out of the process. It is not a good idea. Let us make sure that all the polytechnics in our country, in each of the regions, have the same infrastructure and the same level of development. Then we can make the transition for all of them. But pick some and leave some out, then you are disadvantaging and destabilising the ones that you have left out,” he said, stressing: “Everything that John Mahama does, there is no proper preparation and there is no proper follow-through of the idea. When we get the chance (in 2017), we are going to make sure we do all together as one.”
The comments have been interpreted in some sections of the media as a promise by the three-time presidential aspirant to undertake what is already under implementation by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government.
But Professor Ameyaw-Akumfi, speaking on Accra100.5FM Monday June 20, denied the attributions made to his party’s flagbearer, explaining that Mr Akufo-Addo had been misunderstood.
“…All he said was that in his opinion, all the 10 [polytechnics] can be converted at the same time so that all become universities at the same time. That was what he said,” the former Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) told Chief Jerry Forson.
He said in Nana Akufo-Addo’s view, authorities should have brought all the country’s polytechnics to the same level of infrastructure and equipment before the take-off to run degree programmes.
Further, he stated that in the opinion of the flagbearer, the move to first upgrade six of the polytechnics, rather than all 10, suggested discrimination and would lead to increased pressure on the newly-created technical universities for admission, as most applicants would rather be enrolled there than in the four polytechnics yet to be upgraded.
Prof Ameyaw-Akumfi added that the NPP was committed to technical education as such graduates would be central to the party’s ambition of industrialising the country.
