Universities cautioned against increased intake

A former Vice-Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor Kaku Sagary Nokoe, has advised universities to be cautious about increasing intake for the 2013-2014 academic year because of the two cohorts of senior high school (SHS) leavers.

That, he said, was to ensure that quality was not compromised.

According to him, if the universities went beyond their thresholds for admission, it would mean that there would be the need for more lecturers, back-up staff, facilities, infrastructure, among other things, which could not be produced in two months.

Prof Nokoe was presenting a paper on, “Quality Assurance”, at a Senior Academic Leadership Training (SALT) programme organised by the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) at the University of Ghana, Legon.

“If we make the mistake of raising the numbers substantially above the thresholds, then it will be difficult for us to maintain the quality that we are supposed to have,” he said, suggesting that students who could not make it this year could enter the universities later.

“Should everybody go to university in the first year after senior high school?” he quizzed.

Senior high school candidates

This year, 409,753 candidates wrote the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

They constituted the last batch of four-year SHS students under the 2007 educational reform policy and the first batch of three-year SHS students following the reversal of the duration of SHS education from four to three years in 2010.

Fears have been expressed that most of the graduates will not be able to gain admission to the universities and other tertiary institutions because of inadequate infrastructure and facilities.

Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Education has begun supporting tertiary institutions and urged them to put in place measures to absorb a greater number of the SHS graduates.

As part of efforts to absorb them, the government has allocated GH¢7 million to public tertiary institutions to expand their student intake capacity next academic year.

The universities and the government’s representative in June reached a common ground that the intake of students to tertiary institutions this year should be increased to accommodate the huge number of students who completed SHS this year.

Quality for higher institutions

Making his presentation, Prof Nokoe underscored the need for higher educational institutions to adopt quality assurance procedures in their activities.

Without quality assurance, he said, the universities would not survive, especially in the face of growing competition, globalisation and the expectation of the labour market.

He said higher educational institutions were confronted with issues of quality of various types and dimensions, ranging from students, infrastructure, ageing faculty and pedagogy.

Quality, he said, was not negotiable and that institutions should continuously strive to improve on their activities and products.

“Quality and its assurance must be our main focus because without that we will fail in a highly competitive world,” he said.

University rankings

University rankings, Prof Nokoe said, although made for competition, did not measure quality.

“Yes, it is good for competition, but it does not necessarily translate into quality,” he said.

He urged the universities to do self-assessment periodically, saying, “When these assessments are done, they must be shared with stakeholders.”

By Emmanuel Bonney & Sarah Mensah/Ghana