By: Kwamina Bamfo-Agyei
The Deputy Minister of Education in-charge of Tertiary Hon. Samuel Okudjato Ablakwa has disclosed that the second assessment report on Cape Coast Polytechnic as technical university is ready and the Minister of Education will make a pronouncement very soon of which Cape Coast will be happy.
Cape Coast Polytechnic was not mentioned as part of the first phase of six polytechnic to be converted when the President of Ghana John Dramani Mahama disclosed this in Parliament early this year.
According to the Ablakwa Cape Coast scored high marks in infrastructure but low marks in governance issue and laboratories. He was addressing residents of Cape Coast on the Accounting to the people programme.
According to his tone of voice he was optimistic that Cape Coast will be among the polytechnics to be converted to technical University although he indicated that his minister will make known the outcome of the report to the public.
He said conversion of polytechnics to universities should not be political but must go through academic process for the institutions to be recognized outside Ghana hence it is not prudent for the Presidential candidate of New Patriotic Party Nana Addo Akuffo - Addo to promise the people of Ghana that when giving the nod to be a President he will convert all polytechnics to universities.
President Mahama during the inauguration of Takoradi Polytechnic as a technical university indicated that technical universities would form an integral part in transforming the socio-economic fortunes of the country, saying the country could be transformed with the skills and knowledge of its human resources.
He stated that the demand of the job market today, especially by businesses and industries, required technical and skilled personnel, and no longer the book-long and grammar type of education.
President Mahama observed that the economic strength of a country is inextricably linked to the skills and competences of its workforce for optimum development which were in abundant supply in technical universities.
