Legon Students In Limbo

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Monday July 25, 2011.
The government appears to be indecisive on whether authorities at the University of Ghana, Legon in Accra are justified in the increment of academic and accommodation fees for students in the 2011/2012 academic year.

The decision by public universities to increase fees is causing uneasy calm among parents and students as Ghana’s premier university has already announce its increment and the rest are likely to announce theirs’ within days.

As a result, students of the University of Ghana have vowed to embark on protest march on Wednesday July 27, 2011to the seat of government, Castle Osu to present a petition to President John Evans Atta Mills over the increment.

In its bid to calm the student’s down, management of the university decided that, as a concession, and contrary to the usual practice of students paying full fees at the beginning of the academic year it will allow students to pay a minimum of 50 per cent of all due fees and charges for the first semester although it is not prepared to reduce the fees.

Yesterday the Ministry of Education organized a news conference to brief the media on the upcoming national forum to be held in August 2011 on the financing of tertiary education in Ghana and Mahama Ayariga, a deputy Minister in charge of Tertiary Education took the opportunity to comment on the increment of fees.

When asked about the government’s position on the increment, Mr. Ayariga rather called for calm among the student body and appealed to them to dialogue with the university authorities for peace and harmony to prevail.

He said all along, it has been the government’s wish to make tertiary education free but since it is difficult to implement such a policy the government resorted to cost sharing where it (government) bears bulk of the cost saying “we still insist that the universities should not increase fees more than10 per cent threshold.”

He said he personally conferred with the vice chancellor of the University of Ghana and other top management members and they were able to explain to demonstrate to him the need for the increment.

He said “they have in fact increased academic user fees by 10 per cent which is within limit. There are other cost elements which have seen increment and they include medical expenses for students, examination fees by 100 per cent as well as sports fees.”

Mr. Ayariga said for instance the university authorities explained to him that they had to increase examination fees due to the high cost involved in the organization of examination and added that due to high incidence of malpractices the university intends to decentralize the conduct of examination in the various faculties and use CCTV cameras to monitor the process.

He also said the university authorities explained further that cost of out-of-campus sporting activities among others compelled them to increase sports fees.

“We are appealing to the students to allow more space for dialogue. I have also appealed to the authorities to engage the students to review the situation so that both parties will reach acceptable conclusion.”

He said the government in collaboration with the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) is committed to providing a common platform for all stakeholders including political parties to deliberate on how tertiary education should be financed in the country and the event is slated for August 24 and August 25, 2011.

He said Ghana has a strategic advantage in the West African sub-region and should therefore work hard to make tertiary education equitable and accessible to Ghanaians and attractive to foreign students.

“If we pretend that everything is well with our tertiary education, the quality will decline. We do not want to churn out graduates who the job market cannot absorb.”