Prof. Yankah tours KNUST; Assesses preparedness for first batch of free SHS products

The Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwesi Yankah, has praised the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) for the massive infrastructure development it is undertaking to accommodate the influx of the students who will be seeking tertiary admission next academic year.

He said usually the yearly enrolment for the tertiary education in the country was around 90,000 but that the number was expected to rise to 145,000 next academic year and there was the need to find out how prepared the universities were to accommodate the additional numbers.

According to him, subsequent years might go higher and higher again until it started dipping.

The minister, who was on a fact finding mission to find out the preparedness of the university for the next academic year, said he was more than impressed with KNUST.

He said the university looked more than prepared to take on more students who would be knocking on its door.

“After almost one and half hour tour, I get the sense that the university is well prepared. Adequately prepared for the numbers and the numbers that can be taken in as explained by the Vice- Chancellor are slightly more than ideal,” he said.

Quality

Accordingly to him, it was not the sheer numbers that the tertiary institutions were expected to absorb but, “numbers matched by quality facilities on the ground; numbers matched by our compliance with standard and maybe norms.”

Good news

Prof. Yankah explained that the avalanche of students coming from the Free SHS policy seeking admission to tertiary institutions next academic year was good news for the country as it would increase the enrolment ratio of the country from the current 16.8 to about 25 per cent.

Even though he said 16.8 per cent enrolment ratio was better than the African continent average of 8.5, “it is not well enough compared to the global average of 50 per cent.”

IGF

Prof. Yankah was, particularly, impressed that all the huge infrastructural development taking place at the university were from its own internally generated fund (IGF).

He said that vindicated the new arrangement for the universities to keep as much of the IGF as possible, “so long as IGF is put to productive uses we are not worried. It is when there are leakages in the use of the precious funding that we get worried,” he explained.

He was, particularly, impressed by the sprawling infrastructure development at the Faculty of Art and Built Environment, which was designed by the university itself.

When completed, the nine-storey facility would have 70 offices for lecturers, classrooms and lecture theatres, offices for Teaching Assistants and students centre for project works.

It would also be fitted with multimedia facility that could teach the three classes of 100 students each at the same time.

The infrastructure has the capacity to accommodate 900 students at a time.

Residential facility

The minister was, however, sad that the infrastructure development taking place at the university did not have a matching improvement in the provision of residential facility for the students.

Prof. Yankah said that should provide an opportunity for the private sector to partner the university to provide residential accommodation for students and build hostels on and close to the campus to accommodate the students.

“Let's keep encouraging the private sector to take advantage of the opportunity available and come to terms with the management to come in and invest in the provision of hostel facilities.

He challenged the management to get the private developers to put residential facilities on campus between now and August to make it easier for students to access the wonderful academic facilities available at the universities.

He commended the management to come up with something that “we wish to be proud of” within such a relatively short period of time.