Government procures furniture for selected universities, colleges
Government has procured 16,000 pieces of furniture for distribution to selected universities and colleges throughout Ghana, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, a Deputy Minister of Education, said on Thursday.
The furniture cost GHc3.2 million and it is in fulfillment of government’s promise made to universities and other tertiary institutions to increase admissions for this academic year.
Mr. Ablakwa said the Ministry had received requests for furniture and other equipment including computers and teaching and learning materials and it was determined to provide those needs to enhance quality teaching and learning
Mr Ablakwa said this when he presented 5,000 pieces of furniture to the University of Education, Winneba, on Wednesday.
The main Campus in Winneba will receive 2,000 pieces of the furniture while a 1,000 each will go to its Kumasi, Mampong Ashanti and Ajumako campuses.
He said the government had also provided seven million Ghana Cedis to universities and other tertiary institutions to complete projects that were 80 per cent uncompleted to enable them to increase admissions.
“This positive action on the part of government is to ensure that many students get admission into the universities and other tertiary institutions and not to stay at home idling, Mr. Ablakwa said.
“The positive response from the universities and tertiary institutions is a remarkable achievement for Ghana”.
Profession Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw, Vice Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, who received the furniture, said in response to government’s appeal, the university had increased its intake from 4,500 students last year to 9,500 students this academic year.
He expressed appreciation to the government for the assistance and announced that some projects that were 80 per cent uncompleted had had some of them completed while work was also on-going on the remaining ones.
Professor Asabere-Ameyaw appealed to the government to provide the university with more logistics to train more teachers.
He said the university had a peculiar challenge as its campuses in the Kumasi, Ajumako and Mampong Ashanti depended largely on the main campus and that called for more support from the government to make the university to be alive to its core responsibility of providing quality training to its products as teachers.
He conducted Mr. Ablakwa around three projects, two of them completed while work was on-going in on one of them.
At the Cape Coast University, Mr. Ablakwa presented 2,000 pieces of furniture to the university.
The university admitted 6,144 students, an increase 27 per cent over last year’s figure of 4,818 students.
Mr. Ablakwa expressed government’s gratitude to the universities and other tertiary institutions for paying heed to the government’s appeal.
Rev. Professor Benjamin Abotchie Ntreh, Dean of Students of the University, thanked the government for furniture and promised that the furniture would be utilised to benefit the students.
He called for the expansion of infrastructure and equipment for the university to deliver on its mandate.
The Cape Coast Polytechnic was also presented with 2,500 pieces of the furniture.
Mr. Ablakwa said the government was studying a committee’s report on the possibilities of converting polytechnics into technical universities.
He said it was the government’s intention to have each of the polytechnics in the region 10 regions converted into a technical university.
Dr. Lawrence Atepor, Rector of the Cape Coast Polytechnic, who received the furniture, said the polytechnic had increased students’ intake from about 300 students last year to 1,500 students this year.
He appealed for more assistance to enable the polytechnic to train more students for the manpower needs of Ghana.
Source: GNA