By Belinda Ayamgha, GNA
Accra, Aug. 28, GNA - Mr. Peter Kaba, Executive Secretary of Vice Chancellors Ghana (VCG) has called on government to give financial and technical clearance for the recruitment of more lecturers into public universities to cater for the potential influx of students in 2020.
He said the current Student Teacher Ratio at the universities was not good and was likely to worsen with the influx of students in 2020, when the first batch of free Senior High School (SHS) students enter universities.
Speaking to the media, at a Breakfast meeting organised by the Ghana Employers Association (GEA) in Accra on Tuesday, Mr. Kaba said the high number of students entering SHS as a result of the free SHS initiative, though laudable, could potentially affect the quality of students that would be produced by universities, if adequate provisions were not made to receive them.
He noted that the VCG had engaged the ministry of education on their concerns and presented a position paper detailing the various issues and needs of the universities in terms of infrastructure, budgetary allocation and personnel.
“Two years from now, we will be receiving the students from the free SHS. GETFund is choked in terms of releases to meet the demands of the universities so what we’re asking government to do is get us the financial clearance to be able to employ more lecturers,” he said.
He acknowledged the demand on the economy saying government approved a quantum of their request last year and hoped that it would do same this year.
He said although the products coming into the universities from SHS were good, there was the need to respect the student-teacher-ration at the universities in order to maintain that quality.
“When the influx comes and the lecturers are not many to teach them, it may compromise the quality of students, and that may also compromise the quality of products absorbed by the labour market,” he said.
He said in 2020, about 400,000 students from the free SHS were expected to join the universities and the public universities needed not less than 3000 lecturers, excluding the technical universities.
Mr Alex Frimpong, Chief Executive Officer of the GEA, noted that while there had been concerns raised about declining quality of graduates, no study had been conducted to empirically assess the situation and there was the need for graduates to gain practical know-how in their professions through apprenticeships.
“The difficulty we have is that the numbers that are coming out are so huge that not many of them are likely to get employment. There are also so many institutions that we cannot vouch for the quality of their faculty and what they teach so that becomes another headache,” he lamented.
He assured however that with a good economy, employers can get the requisite young talents, it can curb unemployment through training and development.
“We should rather encourage them to do better,” he said, adding that the most important thing, for him, was their attitude to their work, as the right qualification and right attitude must go hand-in-hand.
He also urged businesses to invest time and patience in nurturing and growing young talents for tomorrow. “Nobody will do it for us, we have to do it ourselves,” he stated.
GNA
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