Poly Conversion: POTAG Condemns Aryeetey

The Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) has criticised the outgoing Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof Ernest Aryeetey, for saying polytechnics are being converted into technical universities because rectors lobbied for it.

General Secretary of POTAG, David Worwui Brown said government is doing the conversion because it identified the need for it. “It was done because of the challenges of polytechnic students, which are getting worse by the day,” he said.

“Polytechnics did not lobby for government to do the conversion”, he said on Joy TV.

All ten polytechnics in the ten regions of the country are being converted in phases. Work on the first six has started amidst a raft of controversy.

Prof Aryeetey, however, indicated that the conversion is being done at the instance of rectors who want their status to be elevated. To him, converting polytechnics into technical universities is not the way to go.

Speaking at an event organised by NDK Financial Services on Thursday July 21, Prof Aryeetey said: “When you change a polytechnic into a university, you are saying, basically, ‘spend more time doing a research and generating ideas’. Is that what we want? That’s not what we intended,” he said, adding: “We know it will go wrong, but why are we doing it? We are doing it because it will make a few people happy.”

He continued: “… Some people believe – that’s the politics – that their stature in Ghana will be enhanced by becoming a professor or a vice chancellor. What is this? …And so you would lobby the government, put pressure [on the government] and the government would say: ‘OK, we’ll do it for you’. That is how we change things in this country and in the end we change them and everybody is happy, or those who are involved are happy and the system does not function effectively”.