In-access to tertiary education would affect growth - Mensah

Accra, Aug. 7, GNA - Ghana will not be able to accelerate its annual economic growth rate to the envisaged 15 per cent if majority of the age group that should receive tertiary education do not gain admission. Mr. Joseph Henry Mensah, Senior Minister said all national aspirations would be indefinitely frustrated so long as 97.5 per cent of the youth that should benefit from tertiary education were denied that right.

"The 2.5 per cent of the youth in those echelons who today receive education and training up to tertiary level cannot by any alchemy galvanise the economy towards those double digit rates of growth," he said.

Mr. Mensah was addressing the inaugural Busia Memorial lecture on the topic: "The Danquah-Busia Tradition: Some Contributions Towards A New Strategic Agenda," in Accra on Wednesday.

The lecture was instituted by the Busia Foundation to recognise the achievements and contributions of late Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia, Prime Minister in the Second Republic, in the education, economic and political development of the country.

It was also to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his death. Mr. Mensah stressed the importance of tertiary education, saying, a pool of highly trained managers, professionals and teachers is crucial to any government programmes to pull the country out of the hole of economic stagnation that had plagued it after so many decades. He said while economic difficulties had made it impossible to sustain the high level of funding of higher education, good standards at the tertiary level could also not be maintained with the current level of low financing.

Budgetary allocations per student have fallen from the equivalent of 1,114 dollars in 1997 to 566 dollars per student by 2001. Mr. Mensah said, in view of the demands of other pressing social responsibilities including health and infrastructure development, there was no way that the current budgetary resources could make up for the shortages in educational financing.

He called for a radical change and approach to the issue of funding, saying, as first step stakeholders in tertiary education should view it more as a public good than as a private one.

"Secondly, we should stop thinking of educational expenditure as consumption and start thinking of it as investment, on which the returns will accrue over a period of time in the future".

Mr. Mensah suggested borrowing from various sources to finance the training of high-level manpower, expand student intake and restore quality in tertiary education.

He said SSNIT could support such borrowing by making available to government a regular compulsory loan for investment in higher education and manpower training and development, adding that, this would be a better investment of the nation's savings than empty office buildings. Mr. Mensah said the country should plan to join the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) world on terms and ways in national interest.

He stressed the need to formulate policies and instruments that could be used to bring the benefit of ICT to bear on the daily lives of Ghanaians through the adoption of policies and programmes, which encouraged private investment.

An Endowment Fund for a Professorial Chair of Sociology in the name of Dr Busia was launched at the lecture.

Professor Busia was the first African Professor and the first Head of the Sociology Department of the University of Ghana. He became Prime Minister in August 1969 but was overthrown in a coup d'tat three years later.