Stakeholders deliberate on new tertiary institutions’ admission system

Stakeholders in education have begun deliberations on a draft Centralised Application and Proceeding Service (CAPS) policy to help fine-tune the new system.

When finally adopted, the CAPS will be piloted for November/December WASSCE candidates in 2020, after which it will eventually be rolled out for the 2020/2021 academic year.

The deliberations formed part of a sensitisation workshop on the CAPS in Accra yesterday.

It was attended by vice-chancellors of both public and private universities, principals of colleges of education, registrars and managers of both public and private universities, among other participants.

Over the years, prospective students wishing to gain admission to tertiary institutions in the country have to purchase forms and apply separately to universities of their choice.

CAPS

However, under the CAPS, candidates will not be required to buy individual university admission forms because the system will provide a centralised admission platform which will offer a variety of choices and opportunities for applicants to select three tertiary institutions of their choice for admission.

The CAPS is expected to cover the 176 tertiary institutions in the country, including public universities, technical universities/polytechnics, specialised/professional degree-awarding institutions and all the 46 colleges of education and university colleges.

It will, however, not be compulsory for private universities and colleges.

Visitations

The Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah, explained that before determining which way to go, “the Ministry of Education paid two familiarisation visits to the United Kingdom (UK) in March 2018 to understudy the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS)”.

He said later in June, the Tertiary Education Directorate of the ministry also visited Nigeria to understudy a similar body known as the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB).

Prof. Yankah said after the visitations, his outfit set up a committee on centralised admissions to deliberate further on the proposed policy and also produce a master report to be the reference point for the policy execution.

He said the committee had since submitted its report, which the ministry had accepted and endorsed.

“It was accepted for its potential to widen access to tertiary education, promote efficiency and transparency and reduce applicant stress and costs, even while the universities’ institutional sovereignty remains intact.

“This only means that widening access to tertiary education involves breaking down procedural and structural barriers, as well as promoting admission procedures that ensure the accumulation of a huge compendium of socio-economic data for use by the government and other stakeholders to facilitate national planning across all sectors,” the minister added.

Mandate

Presenting the draft policy for consideration, the Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), Prof. Muhammed Salifu, said the platform would be mandatory for all public universities and other public tertiary educational institutions in the country.

He, however, advised private universities to enrol onto the platform, since, according to him, it would enable them to advertise their institutions as accredited universities.

He said the CAPS platform would be on a website to facilitate on-line applications from prospective students to various tertiary educational institutions in Ghana.

“The CAPS website will interface with the websites of the tertiary educational institutions to ensure seamless application processes,” he added.

Prof. Salifu assured the universities that the admission and placement of prospective students would remain the preserve of the universities, saying: “It will not be the responsibility of CAPS to admit and place students into the universities.”