Workshop on draft tertiary education policy held

A three-day workshop to deliberate on the draft Tertiary Education Policy Document has been opened in Koforidua. The draft policy document seeks to serve as a reference material that would be a distillate of key Government policies on tertiary education in the country.

Opening the workshop, the Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwesi Yankah stated that the whole project forms part of the Ministry of Education’s strong desire to transform the face of education in line with the national vision of the Government of the Republic of Ghana.

He stated that the Ministry of Education was fully committed to improving quality higher education in Ghana, hence the policy document that would ensure institutional compliance with policy and minimize irregularities and deviations from normative practices.

Prof. Yankah indicated that the document provided an opportunity to realign occasional inconsistencies between provisions in the national constitution and provisions in university acts/statutes, adding that new and emerging realities were expected to be contained as seen in documentation on technical universities, colleges of education, private universities and associated policies.

He expressed appreciation to the committee that produced the draft policy document and thanked participants for honoring the invitation of the Ministry.

Giving an overview of the Document, Prof. Jonathan N. Ayertey stated that themes covered in the draft document included policies on institutional governance, equity and access, quality and relevance, admissions, entry requirements, credit conversion, the issue of relevance and academic program development, partnership with industry; internationalization, staff student ratio, financing tertiary education, gender, among others.

The Ministry, in 2018, constituted a nine-member committee chaired by Professor Cliff Tagoe, to deliberate and in consultation with stakeholders, produce a draft policy document by bringing together all relevant existing documentations, distill relevant government policies, regulatory policies and legislative instruments and, taking into consideration, emerging realities on the

tertiary landscape, propose appropriate policy guidelines that are consistent with national vision.

The committee was also to “in the face of emerging global realities, propose additional policies and guidelines considered essential in the promotion of national interest and smooth running of tertiary institutions in Ghana.

The Committee after several months of deliberations, submitted its draft report to the Ministry in November, 2018.

It is upon this that the Ministry of Education, has organized a retreat for stakeholders within the tertiary space to discuss and fill the vacuum with an attempt to providing a broad guideline for policy formulation with regards to tertiary education.

Participants included Vice Chancellors of all state-owned universities; Officials of the Ministry of Education; Representatives of regulatory bodies including the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), the National Accreditation Board (NAB), the National Board for Professional and Technician Examinations (NABTEX); the Conference of Rectors and Vice Chancellors of Technical Universities; University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG);Teachers and Education Workers Union (TEWU); the Education Reform Secretariat of the Ministry of Education; and some celebrated Educationists in Ghana.