‘Create right environment for private universities to thrive’
The Chairman of Radford University College in Accra, Nana Kwabena Dwomoh-Sarpong, has urged the government to create the right environment for private universities to thrive.
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For instance, he said, the government ought to stop taxing private universities so that they could have the breathing space to provide the kind of training that would prepare the youth to take up responsible positions after their education.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, Nana Dwomoh-Sarpong said, “When you tax us, you indirectly tax the students because it will be passed on to them and it makes it difficult for more people to access higher education.”
He stated that all over the world the best universities were the private ones, “but unfortunately in this country, people tend to bring the private universities down.”
According to him, anyone who established a university was not going to make profit, until maybe after 10 years because of the huge costs and tax overloads.
“If they are making profit why are they unable to pay their loans?” he questioned. Adding that some of the Institutions had collapsed.
No competition
The Radford University Chairman pointed out that the private universities were not there to compete with the public universities.
“They have been there for a long time and have something we don’t have and we also have something they don’t have,” he said.
However, he emphasised that “all of us have the common goal to train our youths to be productive.”
Stressing on access, Nana Dwomoh-Sarpong said the private institutions had come to play a major role.
“Until the private institutions came on board, how many people were getting access to higher education?” he questioned.
Job creation
He indicated that there were many areas the private universities would train people to enable them to get jobs, citing as an example, his outfit, which undertook undergraduate programme in fashion design.
“The problem in this country is that we don’t teach students how to set up their own businesses,” he observed, adding that, that explained why Radford University College paid great attention to entrepreneurship as a course.
Contrary to claims in certain quarters that the private universities charged high fees , Nana Dwomoh-Sarpong said “what we charge is nothing to write home about compared to the public universities.”
“We are charging lower than the fee being paid in public universities,” he said.