The GETFund law and private universities

The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) Law which the Government is considering amending in order to extend the facility fully to the private universities was borne out of the GETFund Act 2000 (Act 581).

The GETFund was enacted on August 25, 2000, and became operational in the middle of 2001. Arguably, the tremendous boost the GETFund has had for education financing, from the basic to tertiary institutions in the country, cannot be overemphasised.

The Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, perhaps won the hearts of the private universities and for that matter the other private tertiary institutions when he stated recently at the second graduation ceremony of the Regent University College of Science and Technology in Accra that the law needs to be amended to make it more accessible to the private universities.

His concern in getting the GETFund Law amended may be due to the fact that the fund is principally to supplement education financing in public educational institutions as stated in Section 2 clause 2 (a) of the Act: "To provide financial support to the agencies and institutions under the Ministry of Education, through the Ministry, for the development and maintenance of essential academic facilities and infrastructure in public educational institutions, particularly in tertiary institutions. "

But to a lesser extent, the private universities and other private tertiary institutions do enjoy some limited support from the GETFund in terms of academic facilities because of Section 2 (e) of the law.

The section states that the monies from the Fund are to be expended "to provide monies to support such other educational activities and programmes for the promotion of education as the Minister in consultation with the Board may determine."

That Section is no doubt an omnibus clause because it allows the Minister of Education to support bodies such as the private universities and other private tertiary institutions.

It needs to be stated that the basic functions of the Fund are two-fold; for infrastructure and academic facilities.

As far as the private universities and other private tertiary educational institutions are concerned, the Minister has in the past taken advantage of the omnibus clause in Section 2 (e) of the GETFund Law to reach out to the private universities with library books, computers and vehicles. In addition loans have been advanced to students in those educational institutions, thereby satisfying the academic facility function of the fund.

Any amendment to the law should address the infrastructure function of the fund, an issue which needs to be given serious thought. But have we spared a thought to find out the source of funding for the GETFund, now that we want it to reach out to the private universities and the other private tertiary institutions?

According to the GETFund Act, there are five sources of money for the Fund. The commonest is the two-and-a-half percent of the Value Added Tax (VAT) rate. Other sources are:

Monies that may be allocated to the Fund by Parliament.

Monies accrued to the fund through its fundraising activities.

Grants, gifts, donations and voluntary- contributions for individuals and organizations.

Other monies or property that may in any manner become lawfully payable and vested in the Board of Trustees for the fund.

The GETFund, as it stands now, cannot support the private tertiary universities and other private tertiary institutions with infrastructure because the ownership of those institutions are vested in the Proprietor and not the State, as it is the case with public educational institutions.

Perhaps the legislative instrument to get the law amended will have to say that, for the avoidance of doubt, references to universities, polytechnics and other educational institutions in the Act shall be understood to refer to both public and private educational institutions.

The ball, however, is in the court of the Government to determine whether the proposed amendment to the GETFund Law to help address the concerns of the private universities and other private tertiary institutions should cover both academic and infrastructural facilities.

Credit: Felix Essah-Hienno (Ghanaian Times)
(The writer is Headmaster, A kwamuman Secondary School, Akosombo.)