Appointments Committee vets Prof. Yankah, others
The Minister of State-designate in charge of Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah, has defended the four-year Senior High School (SHS) curriculum, saying students who went through that system performed better than their counterparts who went through the three-year course.
He, however, proposed a window to be opened for well-endowed schools that could complete the three-year system with the hope of posting good performance without restrictions.
Prof. Yankah shared his views on the matter when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament last Monday.
Answering questions on a wide range of issues, he described the complaints that private universities were much more expensive than public ones as a myth, contending that the gap between public and private universities was narrowing.
Prof. Yankah, who is currently the Vice-Chancellor of the Central University, noted that many universities had evolved, leaving their core mandate behind.
He submitted that tertiary institutions had moved away from their original courses and programmes and cited the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) as one such institution running many non-science programmes that did not encourage the younger universities to carve a niche for their own programmes.
Culture of reading
Touching on the need to improve the reading culture among schoolchildren, Prof. Yankah underscored the need for parents to read to their children to sleep, to imbibe in them a good reading culture.
According to the university don, two per cent of primary schoolchildren could hardly read and write English and any other Ghanaian language and called for enough reading books to be supplied to schools, especially the deprived ones, to help change the situation.
Asked whether he supported the compulsory retirement of 60 years in respect of teachers and lecturers who still had the drive to impart knowledge, Prof. Yankah indicated that there was a considerable number of youth out there who needed to be mentored to take up the mantle of leadership.
He said retired lecturers could still take up positions in private tertiary institutions.
Minister of state for MoFA
When the Minister of State designate for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Dr Gyiele Nurah, took his turn, he said he was going to support the substantive minister by way of monitoring and evaluating programmes to boost the food needs of the country.
Speaking about improving the use of water, the nominee said there were plans to introduce sprinkler irrigation where possible, to guarantee all-year-round irrigation for farmers.
On ensuring guaranteed food prices, the minister of state designate mentioned commodity exchange where the farmer would be compelled to sell immediately after harvest and also have farmers deposit their produce at designated places to guarantee price stabilisation as measures the ministry would implement in that direction.
Deputy Interior Minister designate
The last to appear before the committee was the Deputy Minister designate for the Interior, Mr Henry Quartey, who condemned the violent behaviour of some vigilante groups who caused mayhem in the country.
He said he would support his minister to deal with such groups and promised to depoliticise the Police Service.
The deputy minister designate expressed his commitment to partner the minister to reform the country’s prisons.