A Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Cape Coast, Prof George Oduro has discouraged attempts to make aggregate D7 an entry requirement for public universities, describing the move as inimical.
His argument stems from the fact that the current limited facilities to accommodate the huge enrollment will further widen the student to lecturer ratio.
“Making the D7 the cutoff point is going to explode the number of student making the entry to public universities. Currently, the facilities that we have are overburdened and also student to lecturer ration already wide. I think we should rather looking at expanding the structures before pushing this down our throat”
Prof. Oduro was responding to Education Minister Dr, Yaw Adutwum’s directive to Governing Board of Public Universities.
The Minister of Education Dr. Yaw Adutwum, while delivering speech at the swearing-in and inauguration of Governing Councils of some public Universities has asked public universities to admit students with grades D7.
The cut-off grade for admission to public universities is C6, but the education minister believes such academic conditions instead deny students the chance of tertiary education, adding that authorities of public tertiary Institutions should “innovate” and create access programme for applicants with D7.
“There are institutions that are saying we are not getting the numbers, but what happened to support students offering courses in diploma, electrical engineering and after that, you’re going to see the numbers going up, and after that, they can go to work. And then, if they want to continue, they can continue. So we shouldn’t see D7 as a barrier for students accessing tertiary,” the minister said.
“President has set an agenda to achieve 40 percent tertiary enrollment ratio”, Dr. Adutwum emphasized.
However, Prof. Oduro has expressed worry that the lack of remedial courses to assist such students to upgrade before enrolling in programmes will affect the quality of products from the Universities.
“Let’s not only think of promoting access to education without considering quality. They finish and go out there and if they don’t perform, who do you blame?” he quizzed.
Prof Oduro was speaking in an interview with Ghana Television News
While discouraging the practice of using academic credentials to judge good education in the country, Prof Oduro encouraged students with specialty in technical and vocational skills to take up diploma in practical courses over grammar type education.
