Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister for Education, has asked the Management of the University of Ghana (UG) to comply with the 15 percent increment in tertiary fees starting this academic year.
The Education Ministry’s directive follows a meeting with all public universities on the tertiary fees commotion today, January 5. The meeting comes on the back of accusations by the student body that the public universities had increased their fees by more than the 15% threshold approved by Parliament.
According to the Ministry, its investigations proved that UG is implementing about a 37% increment of fees.
Three other public universities; the University of Cape Coast, the University of Education, Winneba and the University of Mines and Technology have all complied with the directive on fee charging.
The Ghana Tertiary Education Council (GTEC) directed all public tertiary institutions to review fees for the next academic year by a maximum 15 percent increment.
However, some students of the University of Ghana accused the Management of the school of charging more than the approved fees for the next academic year.
The University stated that it will engage its Council to deliberate on the 15% increment and how likely it could be for the school to implement.
“We have also heard from the University of Cape Coast about fees that they have taken in cases where fees were over 15%, they are doing refunds. They want to move within the 15% as mandated by Parliament.”
Dr Adutwum
I Blame GTEC For The Confussion
Meanwhile, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor in charge of Academic and Student Affairs at the University of Ghana, Professor Gordon Awandare, had blamed the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) for the confusion that surrounded the increment in the facility user fees by the university.
Explaining the current increment which has created some furore among students and parents, Professor Awandare argued that nothing illegal had been done by the management of the university adding that GTEC got its explanation wrong in its earlier statement on the increment.
Professor Awandare noted that the adjustment of fees is based on rates approved by Parliament and communicated through the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), thus it was legal.
“We are increasing our fees exactly according to the Law. What is going on is that the communication that came from GTEC misled the students into thinking that the fee increment was based on a specific 2021/2022 fee so even if you were paying a subsidised fee in 2021/2022 then we need to use that which is completely wrong.
“The increase was charged on the last approval and the last approval was in 2019. So it will be ridiculous to say we should use whatever we used last year, so if we were charging illegal fees last year, we should continue using that. Let’s do things properly, and so we should not mislead students to think that anything illegal is being done here.”
Prof Awandare
READ ALSO: We Failed In Our Efforts To Curb Corruption- Anti-graft Campaigner
