Private universities soon become autonomous – Prof. Yankah

General News of Monday, June 17, 2019

Source: citinewsroom.com

2019-06-17

The new reforms of higher education policy will make private higher education institutions independent, without belonging to any public higher education institution.

According to the regulations in force, private universities will have to be affiliated with public universities for at least 10 years before gaining autonomy.

Prof. Kwasi Yankah, Minister of Education in charge of higher education, said that this requirement would no longer be needed when the National Board of Accreditation and the National Council of Higher Education would be merged.

"With the affiliation systems of private universities, some of them did not become independent after 15 and even 18 years. We understood that there were other ways to do it. We put measures in place. It's not as if private insertions were inferior and public ones were superior. Whatever the agreed regulation, it can now be applied to both. Thus, when the necessary legislation is approved by Parliament, it will mean that we will no longer have university colleges. They will start in their own name and the degrees that they will offer their own degrees and not by the public universities. "

The government defends the adoption of a law on the regulation of institutions of higher education Last week, the government had advocated for a single status for the management of all higher education institutions in the country.

According to Education Minister Matthew Opoku Prempeh, this initiative is in line with the world's best practices.

He further denied claims that this decision is part of the government's efforts to take control of the management of public universities.

NCTE, NAB merger

The Ministry of Education announced that it was merging the National Council of Higher Education (NCTE) and the National Accreditation Council (NAB).

The Ministry stated that this had become necessary due to overlapping functions of the two regulatory bodies in the education sector.

The new entity, once inaugurated, will have a managing director and three badistants to manage its affairs.

According to Professor Yankah, the merger will reduce administrative costs and duplication of roles.

"We are merging two important regulators. It is the National Accreditation Council and the National Council of Higher Education. Thanks to the laws that established them, we understood that they overlapped functions. So we decided to merge NCTE and NAB into one organization. We will have a director general and then three deputy ministers working together. We do this to reduce administrative costs and the repetitiveness of functions. Some acts can not easily tell which decisions of both bodies have higher or lower priority. "