Parliament passes Ghana Communication Technology University Bill

Parliament has passed the Ghana Communication Technology University Bill, 2020, after its third reading in the House on Friday June 12, 2020.

The Act will change the name of the Ghana Technology University College (GTUC) to the Ghana Communication Technology University (GCTU) as a public-funded university.

It seeks to establish a university that is nationally and internationally recognised as leader in the application of information technology to education and other sectors of the economy.

Motion

With 44 clauses that were subject to amendments, the Bill was presented to the House and read the first time on Wednesday, March 11, 2020, and the Speaker referred it to the Committee on Education for consideration and report.

Moving the motion for the second reading of the Bill on June 2 this year, the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, said the Bill was to establish the Ghana Communication Technology University as a public tertiary institution to provide education in information communication technology.

He said the university college was first established in 2005 with the name Ghana Telecom University College and had since provided long and short-term education and training in information communication technology (ICT) for diverse stakeholders, both in Ghana and the West African sub-region.

He said the college, which played a leading role in enhancing teaching and training at the tertiary level, had its roots in the Ghana Telecom Flagship Training Centre which was the first of its kind in West Africa.

He noted that the training centre progressed steadily through de-regulation and privatisation to become the source of teaching and certification in telecommunication engineering in Ghana and in West Africa.

The GTUC, which was upgraded in 2006 with the requisite infrastructure in preparation for conversion from a training centre into a university college, had signed various memoranda of understanding with local and international collaborators.

Supporting motion

Supporting the motion, the Chairman of the Committee on Education, Mr William Agyapong Quaitoo, presented the committee’s report on the Bill and stated that the GTUC was currently affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).

It was granted an accreditation by the National Accreditation Board on March 30, 2006 and officially inaugurated on August 15, 2006, he said.

According to him, in March 2012, the name of the university college was changed to Ghana Technology University College to reflect the transformation that had taken place and the introduction of new programmes in business and information technology.