The Chief Executive Officer of Citi FM/Citi TV, Samuel Attah-Mensah (Sammens), is proposing the establishment of endowment funds across public tertiary schools in the country.
According to him, this will enable the universities to become financially independent, and also take some pressure off the government.
Speaking on Citi TV’s Breakfast Daily following a report about the inability of some students admitted to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, to pay their school fees, Mr. Atta-Mensah posited that it is about time the system where government absorbs university costs is reconsidered.
“I think this is calling for us to have a rethink of how we finance our tertiary education. Every country where tertiary education relies 100% on the government is failing. In Eastern Europe, they have found a way of drawing international students for specific programs. Ukraine, until this war was the choice destination for medical students. In the UK, the government does not pay for University education.”
“This whole thing of begging the government to pay everything does not help,” he noted.
He proposed the establishment of endowment funds in schools to partly address the financial challenges in the running of public tertiary institutions in the country.
“Government creates grants and packages, makes it accessible to students so that when they are done with school years after, they can pay back. Why do we want to do everything for free and expect to progress as a nation?” he quizzed.
“The point is universities are financed through establishing endowment funds all around the world.”
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has said the government will take off public tertiary institutions from its payroll.
Instead, the institutions will be provided with a fixed amount block of grants as part of expenditure-reducing measures to mitigate the current economic woes in the country.
The government’s decision has been met with mixed reactions from both the tertiary teachers’ union and various stakeholders in the education space.
While others think it is in order, there are those of the view it must be abandoned.
Weaning universities off gov’t payroll will be problematic – Prof. Addae Mensah warns
A former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ivan Addae Mensah, has for instance warned of dire consequences should the government go ahead with plans to wean public tertiary institutions off its payroll.
He contends the proposal should be reconsidered to avert any potential threat to teaching and learning at the tertiary level. For Prof. Ivan Addae Mensah, although said details on the plan are scanty, he believes public universities stand a huge risk of experiencing financial difficulties if such a decision is implemented.
