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The government, in partnership with the National Council of Higher Education, has published the new reform of higher education policy to improve educational outcomes and governance of institutions of higher learning. Higher Education.
The goal is to provide clear guidelines for the structure, planning, development, regulation, operations, overall governance and accountability of the ultimate higher education system.
The 80-page policy document covers; Governance and Management, Institutional Governance, Principal Appointments and Designations, Academic Freedom, Responsibility for T1313, Equity and Access, Expansion and Establishment of Higher Education Institutions, Provision of Flexible and Distributed Learning and Diversification and Differentiation .
The reform contains a bill on the harmonization of laws of public universities, the centralized service of applications and investments, the Ghana Higher Education Commission, the National Fund for Research and Innovation , the higher education management information system and the UDS split into UTAS and UBIDS.
Professor Mohammed Salifu, executive secretary of the National Council of Higher Education, who presented the policy at a national forum bringing together stakeholders in Accra, said that academic fraud was a global phenomenon that was found in all professions.
He added that the risk of employing bad people in good companies undermined the credibility of the education system and that academic fraud was criminal and should be handled by the appropriate agencies and not by educational institutions.
The development of new programs, he said, must benefit from input and support from industry stakeholders. Higher education institutions have also been asked to seek the necessary authorizations, approvals and accreditations from regulators before setting up new programs.
Prof Salifu said the reforms also contained information on the merger plans of three public communication institutes with the University of Media, Arts and Communication, the decision to split the University of development in three different universities and the outsourcing of university residences in universities.
Regarding accountability, he said, the regulator must have adequate mechanisms to hold institutions of higher education accountable for their actions, and the institutions must comply with it.
He added that institutions would also be subject to quality badurance and accreditation at the institutional and program levels.
With the appointment of Chancellors, Professor Salifu stated that the existing provisions allowed the Council, after the PNDC, to appoint Chancellors, with the exception of the University of Ghana's Law of 2010 (Law 806 ).
The proposed amendment, he said, was to allow the appointment of the Chancellor by the President in consultation with the councils.
This, he explained, was intended to clarify the accountability to the Appointing Authority and to resolve the anomaly and contradiction of the appointment by the Board of Trustees. a person who then took precedence.
"It also strengthens the influence and role of government as the owner of the business," he said.
According to the reform, the term of office of the Council varied between two and three years for members other than the vice-chancellor, member of the board.
The proposal is to harmonize the provision to at least three years, two years being impractical given the delay in appointing boards and leaving barely enough time for members to orient themselves sufficiently and become familiar with the issue. To allow them to become effective, he says.
Professor Salifu stated that centralized application and placement services would promote admission, fairness and good access to universities and other higher education institutions, which would apply criteria allowing students to access courses for which they had applied.
Other criteria include positive actions for disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities; proposed quota (five percent) for needy and disadvantaged students, including; but is not limited to people with disabilities and other underrepresented groups who have demonstrated an advanced learning ability to ensure the representation of all strata of society in higher education.
He also specified that the admission quota for sponsored (paid) Ghanaian students would not exceed 10% in public institutions and that it would be reviewed from time to time.
Speaking about Technical and Vocational Training (TVET), Professor Salifu said that technical universities would be the top institutions of TVET for the training of highly qualified human resources in order to stimulate growth. economic.
Source: GNA
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