The newly inducted Chancellor of the Ghana Baptist University College, Rev. Enoch Nii Narh Thompson has bemoaned that affiliation fees charged by public universities in foreign currencies especially in dollars.
He says the practice does not only affect the financial state of the universities but put them on the verge of collapse.
According to him, such transactions further depreciate the already struggling Ghanaian Cedi.
He disclosed this during his investiture as the third chancellor of the university college on Thursday, December 1, 2022.
“Some of the public universities that are mentoring the mission schools and private universities are fixing their affiliation fees in dollar terms. When affiliation fees are tagged in dollars terms, the falling of the Cedi or changes in the exchange rate affects the institutions very very terribly.
“The legal tender in the country is the Ghana Cedi so we must do our businesses in the Cedi but when we give preference to foreign currencies it is a political statement that we don’t even believe in our currency and economy. We want the government to intervene for the mutual benefit of both public and private universities,” he bemoaned.
Reacting to the freezing of public sector hiring as stated in the 2023 Budget statement, he encouraged tertiary institutions to rethink the educational system to help tackle graduate unemployment in the country.
“Training of man power for the nation in the past focused on public sector employment which wasn’t the right approach because the universities should produce men and women who not only have academic knowledge but have entrepreneurial capabilities and can take up businesses and start up something new.
“This should be a wake up call to our universities. They should not only produce academic people but they should produce people with managerial and entrepreneurial skills so that in the absence of public sector engagement, these graduates of our universities can start up businesses and become useful citizens of our country,” he said.
He, however, called on the general public to keep hope alive in the midst of current difficulties the country is facing and that the lord will come to the rescue of the nation.
By Issah Zakariah|AkomaFM|Onuaonline.com
