<<Print>>

The Ghana National Union of Polytechnic Students (GNUPS) has registered its protest against seeming attempts by the government to collapse polytechnic education in Ghana. The student body has, therefore, cautioned the government not to take polytechnic education and graduates for granted, since polytechnic education is the gateway to national development. The membership of the students union of the Kumasi Polytechnic, last Wednesday, took to the streets of Kumasi to express their dissatisfaction at the government�s unconcerned attitude towards the Book and Research Allowance (BRA) being demanded by the Polytechnic Teachers Association (POTAG). The students displayed placards which bore inscriptions like, �Revise Bad Educational Policies�, �Respect Polytechnic Education, Enough is Enough�, �Please get good Ministers, Mr. President�, �Ghana is crying for Polytechnic Education, not Economic Failure�, �Please Respect Polytechnic Education�, and � We shall resist attempts to collapse polytechnic education.� Presenting their petition to the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council, the Coordinating Secretary of GNUPS, Mr. Amponsah Manu, indicated that GNUPS was not against the intention of government to establish a National Research Fund to promote development research. However, �We vehemently oppose [the] government�s decision to replace the Book and Research Allowance for teachers.� Mr. Manu stated that GNUPS was not convinced whether the allocations into the research fund will also not be in arrears for years, if established (like some other funds), and affect effective teaching at the expense of the academic work of students. He stated that the POTAG strike had stifled thousands of students from graduating from the various polytechnics in the country. The GNUPS Co-ordinator bemoaned the government�s inability to address the industrial action, saying students had fulfilled their part of the deed by paying their fees and making themselves available for training. He said the least students expected was the government�s refusal to settle its indebtedness to the polytechnic lecturers. �We are not prepared to dabble in the legalities of the strike,� they stated. Touching on the D7 denial to tertiary institutions, GNUPS said they find it worrisome that a grade, which is certified by the recognised body in charge of pre-tertiary examinations and assessment (West Africa Examinations Council, WAEC) as a pass is being considered by another regulatory body denying students access to higher education. They said this unfriendly policy had forced thousands of students to discard furthering their education, since students with overall aggregate 15 are denied admission, whereas their colleagues with aggregate 24 are offered admissions by the dictates of the policy. �Is equity not supposed to be a hallmark of a good policy?� they queried. In as much as all Ghanaians recognise and have always supported the National Accreditation Board (NAB) and National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) in their duties to ensure quality tertiary education, �we believe all Ghanaian students who have managed to pass their exams (as determined by WAEC) must be allowed the opportunity to pursue higher education (subject to the availability of training facilities). Ghana must be ready to harness every single available human resource through education. The students felt that the government was deliberately introducing a policy to bar Higher National Diploma (HND) graduates from pursuing higher learning through the universities, and wondered what was keeping President Mahama from setting up the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) and Student Loan and Trust Fund boards.