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The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, and the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutuwm, will be meeting to discuss the protests over the fee hike.
The University of Ghana and other public universities have come under fire from the student body for allegedly disobeying a directive from Parliament for them to raise tuition by 15%.
However, the UG management has provided justification for the tuition hike.
The Education Ministry’s public relations officer, Kwasi Kwarteng, expressed optimism that a consensus would be reached during the meeting on January 5 in an interview with Citi News.
“The Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, has once again intervened and has invited the universities in question. We have the University of Ghana (UG), University of Cape Coast (UCC), Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and some other public universities. So we have extended invitation to them, hopefully, we will meet them together with GTEC this Thursday [January 5, 2023]. The entire aim is to be able to find a lasting solution or resolve this issue,” the Education Ministry’s public relations officer.
But he is emphatic that the individual universities must abide by the law-backed instruction from Parliament.
“What is most important is that the law is clear, the law has provided the framework upon which fees should be charged. Parliament has done its work, so the expectation was that if there was any contrary view or disagreement, recourse is made to the law. In issues like this, it is not only about enforcement per se, but sometimes compliance is also very important. So when Parliament, the legislative arm of government makes a decision backed by law, and we have a university that goes contrary with the decisions, the other question is what happened to compliance,” Mr. Kwarteng stated.
All public tertiary institutions were required by GTEC to increase fees for the upcoming academic year by no more than 15%.
The GTEC’s action came as a result of several complaints that some colleges were charging higher fees than the 15% Rate Approved by Parliament.
Read GTEC letter below:
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
