Govt urged to reconsider promotion criteria for technical varsity lecturers

• Professor Kingsley Nyarko,
Deputy Minister of Education

The Deputy Minister of Education, Professor Kingsley Nyarko, has directed the technical universities to table a proposal to the Ghana Tertiary Education Council (GTEC) to reconsider criteria for promoting their lecturers.

This follows an appeal by the Vice Chancellor of the Cape Coast Technical University (CCTU), Prof. Kwaku Adutwum Ayim Boakye, for government to reconsider the criteria for lecturers teaching at the technical universities.

Currently, lecturers at the technical universities are mandated as part of their promotion requirement to publish articles like their counterparts in the traditional universities even though their field remains a specialised skilled and technical area.

Professor Nyarko, who was interacting with management of CCTU as part of his duty tour of the Takoradi and Cape Coast Technical Universities last Thursday, said the call was in the right direction, however, it must be tabled formerly in order for government to act on it.

He stated that promotion at technical universities must not only be publication based as pertained at the traditional universities, but must factor in innovation and patents by lecturers since their fields of training required much practical than theories.

The Minister noted that such reform when undertaken would go a long way to make tertiary education progressive and transformational.

He said the critical role of technical and vocational education and training the country indusrialisation drive required that the focus of technical universities as the highest level of training skilled and innovative manpower was not diluted in anyway.

Professor Nyarko, who is also in-charge of technical and vocational education, indicated that the focus of technical universities must not be confused with that of the traditional universities as any attempt to do that would defeat the aim and objectives of the establishment of these specialised institutions.

“We need reforms and innovations in this area to make tertiary education progressive,” he stressed.

Furthermore, he said government recognised the critical role of technical and vocational education in its quest towards the country’s indusrialisation and that, it had invested heavily in that area since 2017.

He emphasised that in this direction, the technical universities had not been left as an enormous investments and initiatives towards their transformation that had been initiated in the various technical universities across the country.

The Vice-Chancellor of CCTU, Prof. Kwaku Adutwum Ayim Boakye, on his part underlined that the university had made a number of gains including the increase in enrolment following the change of its status from a polytechnic to a university.

The gains, he said, were as a result of government investing immensely in the area of STEM and TVET education over the last seven years, adding that, “the government has provided world-class facilities such as ultra-modern laboratories and workshops, which has allowed us to have a hands-on experience.”

Prof. Boakye noted that the school of engineering currently run four solid departments comprising the Civil Engineering, Electrical / Electronic Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Renewable Energy Technology.

He said the progress of the work on developing the various facilities was on course as there had been an increase in the number of lecturers with PhD leaving those without PhD in the minority.

“There has also been an increase in grants, and a huge transformation in areas of research, collaborations, publicity, mentorship programmes, workshops, and access given to students to have first-hand experience in the area of engineering,” he told the Minister.

As part of the visit, Prof. Nyarko was given an inspection tour of some existing facilities, newly constructed laboratory workshops, and those currently under construction on the CCTU campus.

BY TIMES REPORTER