The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences has kicked against the Public Universities Bill laid before Parliament seeking for it to be shelved because its "likely to be retrogressive, rather than enhancing what Ghanaian universities have achieved over the years."
Ghana's proposed public universities bill recipe for chaos – Academy of Arts and Sciences
The raging debate over the Public Universities' Bill leaves so much to be desired.
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The Academy in a five-page document tabled before Parliament said they strongly believe this bill is dangerous and uncalled for insisting is a recipe for chaos in Ghana's tertiary education system.
In the view of the Academy, the Bill is also not in conformity with the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana and must be dropped.
It added: "rather, Ghana needs a differentiated and diversified, but not necessarily hierarchical, university system, to offer the flexibility needed to address the changing needs of students and nations in an increasingly competitive and uncertain world."
The purpose of the Public Universities Bill, according to the Education Ministry, "is to provide the procedure for the establishment of Public Universities, principles of management of public universities, the legal status of public universities, the procedure for financing Public universities and administration and supervision of the activities of Public universities and related matters."
Since the introduction of the bill which is still at the consultation stage, there have been oppositions from some professors at the universities and key stakeholders stating that the government seeks to control academic freedom.
Earlier, the Ministry of Education has explained that the Public Universities Bill is intended to harmonise the management of public universities.
Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah, explaining the rationale behind the bill said there was no intention whatsoever in the bill to curtail the academic freedom and autonomy of public universities.
For instance, he said, while appointment to the Governing Council of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) was for two years, the governing councils of the other universities had a three-year term.
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