From left to right: Samuel Sagoe, President of GRASAG, Mr Agyapong Quaittoo, Chairman of the Select Committee, and Kwasi Frimpong, General Secretary of GRASAG
The leadership of the Graduate Students Association (GRASAG) of Ghana has submitted its recommendations, and made input into the Public University Bill (PUB) 2020 currently before Parliament.
The President of the Association, Samuel Sagoe, and the General Secretary, Kwasi Frimpong, on Wednesday appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education to give further explanation on the recommendations.
The submission of the recommendations follows the advertisement of the Bill by the select committee for input from the public.
Concerns
GRASAG’s main concerns identified in the Bill were found in Sections 5, 12 and 39, which talk about university council, miscellaneous provisions and governance structure.
The Association wants Section 5(1) of the Bill to be amended to maintain institutional GRASAG leadership on the university’s council. Institutional GRASAG presidents, currently, are members of the various university councils.
GRASAG also wants the lumping together of all students under Students Representative Council (SRC), in Section 39 of the Bill, to be looked at to give a clear distinction between Undergraduates Representative Council and Post-Graduates Representative Council. This is because, according to GRASAG, the lumping together takes the eye of policy makers away from post-graduate students and focuses on SRCs that are mostly dominated by undergraduates.
Committee sitting
Chairman of the Select Committee and MP for Akyem Oda, William Agyapong Quaittoo, stated that the concerns raised had been noted, and would be conveyed to the Bill’s sponsoring ministry, the Ministry of Education.
On Wednesday, the Committee met five groups, including GRASAG, Ghana Academy of Art and Sciences, Universities Alumni Association and University of Cape Coast Convocation.
The Chairman disclosed that about 38 petitions and recommendations have been submitted to the Committee from different interest groups, adding they shall meet all the groups that have submitted the various petitions.
In attendance at the meeting were the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, and the Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), Professor Salifu.
