LET'S USE RECOMMENDATIONS

OVER the past 59 years, the Institute of Adult Education of the University of Ghana has organised annual New Year schools during which academics, technocrats, policy makers and ordinary citizens deliberate on issues of governance, the economy, education, etc which are of national significance.
At the end of each New Year School, recommendations are made for the perusal of policy makers and implementers.
The 59th Annual New Year School ended on Wednesday, January 9, 2008. It was on the theme, “Tertiary Education and National Development”, and many prominent personalities presented papers on the various sub-topics discussed in the course of the school.
At the end, many recommendations were made, including concerns over the use of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for purposes outside the objectives of the fund, the role of distance learning, the emergence of wings of political parties on the campuses of our tertiary institutions, the allocation of portions of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) to Members of Parliament, among other issues.
We share in the sentiments expressed by the Chairman of the University of Ghana Council and President of the Association of Ghana Industries, Mr Tony Oteng-Gyasi, that policy makers should factor the recommendations made at annual New Year schools in their programmes and activities.
The DAILY GRAPHIC is not here to determine the merits or otherwise of the recommendations made by the various speakers at the 59th New Year School but we believe that they were all made for the good of the country.
The challenges facing this country are legion and in most cases it appears that the problems are known. What has eluded us are the solutions to those problems.
It is in this context that we must view the admission by the Vice-President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, while opening the school, that access to higher education was one of the greatest challenges faced by the country.
“Without going into the reasons at length, it is important to accept that over the years inadequate investment in infrastructure and learning facilities has been a significant factor,” he said.
Tertiary institutions, which are the centres for teaching, learning and research and which are to develop their students’ minds to better place them in the position to tackle specific problems of society, have benefited from governmental support and financing.
Unfortunately, over the years there has been a missing link between tertiary education and national development. This is because some of the people educated at the taxpayer’s expense have decided to seek greener pastures elsewhere, to the detriment of the well-being of the mass of the people.
The concomitant is that at particular times in our history, and even now, our classrooms have been without teachers, our hospitals without nurses and doctors, and other vital state institutions without the skilled manpower to man them.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that the country can overcome the problems of poverty, disease, hunger, ignorance and unemployment only if beneficiaries of higher education put their knowledge at the disposal of society.
It for this reason that we add our voice to the calls on the government to take the recommendation of this year’s New Year School seriously.
We further ask the government to put together a team to look at the recommendations of all the New Year schools and come up with a workable document which can be factored into the development blueprint that the government wants to come up with.