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05.10.2009 Education

Government Plans Second School Of Law

By Daily Graphic
Vice-President John Mahama, interacting with Apostle Dr Opoku Onyinahsecond right, Chancellor of the PUC and Rev. Dr Peter Ohene Kyeileft, Rector of PUC  at the 1st Congregation of the University held at the College Campus at Sowutuom near  Accra.Vice-President John Mahama, interacting with Apostle Dr Opoku Onyinah(second right), Chancellor of the PUC and Rev. Dr Peter Ohene Kyei(left), Rector of PUC at the 1st Congregation of the University held at the College Campus at Sowutuom near Accra.
05.10.2009 LISTEN

The government is collaborating with the authorities of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to open a second School of Law in Kumasi.

This is to ease the pressure on the Ghana School of Law at Makola in Accra which continues to be the only one for training law graduates in the Barrister at Law programme.

Vice-President John Dramani Mahama made this known at the first congregation of the Pentecost University College (PUC) in Accra last Saturday.

The PUC is affiliated to the University of Ghana, Legon, and the first batch of students was enrolled in February 2005. A total of 271 students graduated and obtained degrees in Accounting, Human Resource Management, Marketing, Banking and Finance, Information Technology and Theology.


Mr Mahama said the government also intended to open a Bachelor of Law programme at the University for Development Studies (UDS) to serve students desirous of pursuing the course in the northern sector of the country.

“These measures are intended to train more lawyers to contribute to the administration of justice in the country,” he said.

Mr Mahama said the government “is also on course” in the extension of assistance and bursaries to science and engineering students, especially girls.

He said the policy, which was contained in the manifesto of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), “would roll out shortly”.

He again charged private universities to introduce programmes in science and technology, since those fields of study “provided the basis for accelerated industrial development in developed economies and Ghana cannot be left out”.

He noted that setting up programmes in science and technology was expensive and for that reason most private tertiary institutions were going for softer courses — Marketing, Management and Administration.

“This is so even in the public universities where the admission of students for the Humanities outstrips that for the sciences and engineering by a ratio of 4:1,” Mr Mahama said.

He said the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) was overburdened with accumulated commitments and arrears.

He commended private tertiary institutions for complementing the Government’s efforts at making tertiary education accessible to many qualified students who did not get access to public tertiary institutions.

Statistics indicate that enrolment in private universities is about 40,000 or 25 per cent of total enrolment in public tertiary institutions.

The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, said the government intended to establish new public universities which would focus on critical manpower needs for national development.

He said the government would improve facilities in the universities, polytechnics, professional institutions and colleges of education “to enable them to admit the large numbers of qualified applicants who do not get access to tertiary education due to inadequate resources and facilities”.

The Chancellor of the PUC, Apostle Dr Opoku Onyinah, said the university sought to produce high calibre professionals who would respond to the needs of society.

The Council Chairman of the PUC, Dr Michael Agyekum Addo, appealed to the government to come up with a clear policy on support for private tertiary institutions, saying that subsidies should be equally distributed among the tertiary institutions.

The Rector of the PUC, Rev Dr Peter Ohene Kyei, said the university authorities had acquired land at Oyibi and Kasoa to expand its facilities.

Author: Musah Yahaya Jafaru

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