Running mate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 presidential election and former Minister of Education, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman has rebuffed accusations the party has done nothing in the tertiary education sector.
According to her, not only has the NDC pursued uncharted waters in the tertiary sector, it is actually the only government in recent times with a track record of setting up universities.
She said, “For instance, the University of Winneba was a specialist training college but was transformed into a University of Education by the Jerry Rawlings PNDC government.”
“Then again, who set up the University for Development Studies (UDS); Who set up the Ho University; Who set up the universities at Somanya and Sunyani?”
“Which other state universities are left beyond these that the NPP can lay claim to,” she quizzed.
Prof. Naana Opoku Agyeman said these on Accra FM 100.5 on Tuesday 27th September 2022.
According to her, establishing a university is a very long and tedious process because the rationale behind setting up any tertiary education needed to be considered.
That, she said, is the reason why Ghana today has a University of Health and Allied Sciences, the University of Renewable Energy and Natural Resources and others.
According to her, the establishment of these universities was targeted at evolving challenges and needs as times go on and stressed the NDC is the only political party that has demonstrated the ability to fashion out the tertiary sector to address these needs.
Free SHS review
Speaking on the Free SHS policy and the calls for a review, Prof. Nana Jane noted that the government is aware it needs to take such action because of the mounting problems.
She noted, however, that the government has used the review called by former President Mahama for its propaganda, so it now finds it difficult to admit such exercise is needed.
“When President Akufo-Addo talked about a broader conversation on SHS, he was only talking about a review but because they told Ghanaians review means cancellation, he finds it difficult to even say that word.”
“Broader conversation simply means review,” she stated.
According to her, the progressively free SHS that the NDC introduced was done so smoothly that many Ghanaians were not even aware of the implementation and that it considered a holistic improvement of the education sector not only at the secondary level.
The former Education Minister argued that any policy that would be introduced at any level of the education sector should necessarily consider the other levels.
“So the NDC’s policy did not only pick just one level. We looked at how to improve all the levels from primary, secondary to tertiary because these have a direct impact on each other positively or negatively.”
E-Blocks
Prof. Naana Jane stated construction of the e-blocks was a carefully planned initiative by the Mahama administration because the government did not want to make the same infrastructural mistakes of the past.
According to her, claims by the NPP that President Mahama constructed the e-blocks in the bush are ridiculous because no government in their right senses will put up such huge projects in a city centre where land is very scarce.
The e-block project, she said, is futuristic and not only did it make provisions for all ancillary facilities like offices for teachers, laboratories and others, it also considered future expansions and additions.
According to her, the NDC government required a lot of space for such projects and the locations the chiefs could provide land large enough to accommodate the works outside the community centres.
“Therefore, the claim that the e-blocks were built in the bush is shameful propaganda because all the big schools you see in the city centres today were actually constructed in the ‘bush too’ but the cities have grown and expanded to encompass these schools.”
“That is why the Mahama government included the provision of buses as part of the e-blocks concept,” she said.
Teacher trainee allowance
Speaking on the cancellation of the teacher trainee allowance, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku stated that contrary to NPP propaganda the NDC did not cancel the allowance but substituted it with the student loans for fresh students.
She challenged any person who claims they were denied the allowance while at the training college as a result of the so-called cancellation to come out.
The NDC at the time, she said, introduced the loan scheme for students of the training colleges in order for these institutions to maximize their intake, which was less than 50% capacity at the time.
This, she said, allowed more people to get into the teacher training colleges to enable the state to match the teacher needs of the rapidly expanding education sector.