New body to regulate all higher education institutions

The country’s national cabinet has approved the establishment of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, which will regulate all tertiary institutions and help to speed up the establishment of qualifying private universities, according to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

He was speaking on the occasion of the graduation ceremony on 23 June of Ashesi University, a private higher education institution which received its university charter from the president in May this year. In terms of the charter, the university is now a full university and can award its own degrees.

Previously, the university was affiliated to the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana and its graduates were awarded a UCC degree.

Akufo-Addo said the new commission would provide regulations which will mean all universities, public and private alike, will be treated fairly and equally. The regulations would also expedite the processing of deserving applications for presidential charters by private universities, which should take no more than four years to acquire.

“The six-year wait of Ashesi will be a thing of the past. Government is taking steps to accelerate the granting of presidential charters to other private universities because of their contribution to education and learning in the country,” he said.

Akufo-Addo told the graduating class that “an Ashesi degree should stand for something distinctive, and it should be different from other degrees. The surroundings in which you have been taught and the way you have been taught should help to present the products of this institution as distinguishable from those of other universities.”

He said standards had been compromised in some institutions in the rush to increase student numbers, and where new courses were added without the provision of adequate facilities and faculty. “But Ashesi does not cut corners, does not settle for the mediocre, and insists on long-term good quality,” Akufo-Addo said.

“All students that bear the Ashesi name and that carry an Ashesi degree must shoulder the full weight of the investments made by the university’s president, Patrick Awuah, and do justice to the Ashesi story in all they do.”

Founded in 2002 by Patrick Awuah, a Ghanaian who returned to the country after working in the IT sector in the United States, Ashesi University’s mission is to educate ethical, entrepreneurial leaders in Africa.

It had a pioneer class of 30 students and bachelor degree programmes in business and computer science. Today, the institution has nearly 2,000 students and alumni, with additional bachelor degree offerings in management information systems, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical and electronic engineering.

Ashesi’s curriculum is grounded in a multidisciplinary core that teaches critical thinking, design thinking, entrepreneurship, ethics and leadership.