-Advertisement-

I’ll scrap public universities bill come 2021

The Flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress, John Dramani Mahama, has pledged to scrap the Public Universities Bill, should he be given a second term.

“I want to assure the people of Ghana and the academic community that should government proceed and pass the Bill into an Act of Parliament, I will not hesitate to initiate steps for its immediate repeal.

The former President made this commitment in his Facebook post on Sunday.

“As a matter of priority, if God willing I assume office as President in January 2021, it will be done,” excerpts of the post read.

According to the framers of the Public Universities Bill, it seeks to harmonise the finances, administration and governance structure of public universities.

The Bill, when passed, will give the government power to appoint the majority of members of the University Council.

But it has been rejected by the academia, who insists it was an attempt to crush the autonomy of public universities.

Academia’s stance

Ghana’s academia, including University Teachers Association of Ghana and the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, has rejected the draft Ghana Public Universities Bill 2018, stating it gave the government too much power to interfere in the affairs of universities.

UTAG, for instance, said the draft Bill  “seeks to take back power from university management, academics and their unions and students, and place them in the hands of the President of the Republic, the Minister of Education, the NCTE and the government’s majority representatives on the university council the ultimate powers to make decisions for all public universities”.

The former President agreed with academia.

According to him, the bill, in its current form, would undermine academic innovation.

“Government must listen to the concerns of key stakeholders and withdraw the Public Universities Bill. The Bill, as it stands, does not only risk undermining academic innovation and ingenuity.

“It will also jettison decades of scholarly excellence and adversely affect Ghana’s position as the preferred destination for international scholarly collaboration,” he added.

The Public Universities Bill

The draft Bill has so far attracted wide public criticisms from many people, the Minority leading the entourage.

The Ranking Member on the Education Committee of the House, Peter Nortsu said the draft in its current form undermines the authority of universities.

Find former President Mahama’s post below

Government must listen to the concerns of key stakeholders and withdraw the Public Universities Bill. I want to,…

Posted by John Dramani Mahama on Sunday, June 14, 2020

 

 

2 Comments
  1. Anonymous says

    Gov’t seeking take over universities so they can appoint their cronies in charge of the universities,their party member kids will admit without due diligently .They will give away a doctorate degrees free and award contracts to party members and in all academic excellence will be down-sparrow..

  2. Anonymous says

    So after changing the Educational Curriculum, attempting to scrap Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s name from the history of Ghana and trying to replace him with J.B. Danquah, including forcefully trying to name University of Ghana after the latter, the Akufo-Addo government is taking this ill-faith attitude to the university level? How on earth will a government want to control universities like how the Akufo-Addo government wants to do? UTAG, all stakeholders and the academia in general must resist this meaningless and autocratic Education Bill.

Leave A Comment

Your email address will not be published.

You might also like