Consultation needed before taking public universities off payroll – UHAS VC urges govt

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Professor John Owusu Gyapong has urged the government to conduct broader stakeholder consultation before taking-off public tertiary institutions from its payroll.

Speaking on our morning show Campus Exclusive, he called on the Finance Ministry to begin discussions with authorities of various Universities on the implementation of this measure.

His comment follows the government’s intention to award fixed grants to the Universities as part of measures to address the economic crisis.

“All we need to do is to get access to the ministry of finance and have some initial discussions and then also have bigger stakeholder consultation so that everybody can be on the same page on exactly what to expect.

"Because we should not be mixing things up. I think if we are looking for the model that works, we must create a system that works,” Professor John Owusu Gyapong said.

Management of public universities would consider increasing the school fees and facility user fees if the intended measure is implemented.

According to Prof. Owusu Gyapong, the academic fees paid by students in public tertiary institutions are very low and unrealistic.

He, however, maintained that government needs to devise a way to cushion tertiary students to foot the bill if the proposal is adopted.

“Again no student should be deprived of tertiary education if he or she qualifies to do so irrespective of their financial status which means we need to look for some mechanisms for trying to support students to be able to pay their portion of the user fees and the model that the country would want us to look at,” he said.