A group photograph of stakeholders
The Ghana High Commissioner to the UK, Papa Owusu-Ankomah, has reiterated government’s policy of maximizing opportunities for Ghanaians to benefit from higher education.
To this end, tried and tested approaches such as the centralized admissions platforms will soon be implemented for prospective students.
Papa Owusu-Ankomah stated this when he addressed participants during the opening ceremony of a four-day workshop coordinated by the British Council and the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) on ‘Centralized Admissions Platforms for Tertiary Education in Ghana’.
The high commissioner called on the vice chancellors to maximize the use of their academic faculties, especially through distance education and merging of some courses, as pertains in the global education sector.
Through this, students who desired higher education would have better coordinated options for their future.
The Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwesi Yankah, who led the delegation, indicated that the Ministry of Education, as part of reforms, sought to provide a centralized admission platform that will offer a variety of choices and opportunities for applicants to explore opportunities in universities.
He explained that it was in line with this reform that the workshop was being held to study the UK’s Universities and Colleges Admissions Services (UCAS) system.
The Chief Executive Officer of the British Council, Sir Ciaran Devane, stated that they shared the ministry’s priorities for education in Ghana, adding that having the right systems in place was key to getting the right results.
Sir Devane expressed the British Council’s assurance to using its network and convening power to help facilitate that partnership.
The delegation is made up of Ministry of Education officials, vice chancellors and registrars of public universities and interim vice chancellors of technical universities to the workshop.
Over the years, prospective students wishing to gain admissions to tertiary institutions in Ghana have always had to apply separately to respective universities, spending huge sums of monies on applications alone and eventually not being admitted or having multiple admissions, and the centralized admission platform seeks to address this.