New Year School Opens tomorrow

Page 25: January 3, 2008
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Annual New Year School opens in Accra on Friday on the theme, ”Tertiary Education and National Development”. The Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, will perform the opening ceremony at the Great Hall of the University of Ghana, Legon. It will be the 59th in the series.
Other activities of the school will take place at the K.A. Busia Auditorium, with study group sessions taking place at the Jones Quartey Building.
The school, which is under the auspices of the Institute of Adult Education (IAE) of the University of Ghana, will have Professor Emmanuel Adow-Obeng, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, delivering the keynote address.
The school, organised by the IAE every year to discuss issues of national interest, has, since its inception, dealt with a wide range of topics on education, politics, environment, social, national security, peace and stability, among others.
Participants from all over the country and with varied backgrounds are expected to attend the one-week school, during which they will discuss various issues pertaining to tertiary education and make recommendations for consideration by the government.
The Director of this year’s school, Mr Ishmael W. Parry, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that the theme was chosen to throw a searchlight on tertiary education and national development.
He said the school would examine how well tertiary education had fared in national development and attempt to identify the challenges confronting the sector, vis-à-vis its relevance to national development, and recommend possible solutions to address them.
According to him, it had been 50 years of tertiary education in the country, within which period the number of public universities had increased to six, with several private universities.
Moreover, he said, other institutions, such as teacher training colleges, nurses training colleges and polytechnics, had all been upgraded to tertiary status.
Mr Parry said those institutions had produced different professionals for the nation who were taking vital decisions for the country.
He explained that it was, therefore, essential to evaluate the performance of the sector.
He said the main theme had also been broken into sub-topics, with professionals and practitioners expected to deliver lectures at the various sessions.
According to Mr Parry, the Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Professor Dominic Fobih, would deliver a lecture on the current educational reform and its implications for tertiary education.
He said the Chairman of the Conference of Polytechnic Rectors, Dr Samuel Obeng Apori, who is also the Rector of the Takoradi Polytechnic, together with Mrs Rita Kaine, the Registrar of the Accra Polytechnic, and Mr Richard Nkrumah, the President of the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG), would discuss polytechnic education in Ghana, the challenges and prospects.
Mr Parry said another symposium on resourcing district assemblies for local governance would attract Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Mr Kwamena Ahwoi and Prof Yaw Boakye-Dankwah as speakers.
He said the Principal of the Ghana Telecom University College, Dr K. Osei Darkwah, and the Director of the ICT Directorate of the University of Ghana, Mr Emmanuel Owusu Oware, would deliberate on increasing the utilisation of ICT in tertiary education.