Don’t increase fees of public Universities – Minister warns

The Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwesi Yankah, has issued a warning to management of various public universities to desist from attempts to increase school fees for the 2020/2021 academic year.

The minister said public universities that increase their fees for the next academic year may attract sanctions, as fee increment without parliamentary approval is unlawful.

 Prof Yankah who was speaking to Accra based to Accra based Citi FM said the “recurrent increase in fees is worrying.

“I was rather surprised and abhorred about the arbitrary increases which appear to be recurrent almost every year,” he said at the “Transforming Teacher Education and Learning Program” by the National Council for Education

Prof. Yankah stressed that public universities have been “been clearly told about the need to rout any increases they envisage to Parliament because of the Fees and Charges Act which requires them to do so.”

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The Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, for example, said the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) had not sent any proposal to Parliament on a proposed 5 percent fee increment.

Prof. Yankah further said he did not expect the universities to be complaining about fees given the expected increase in intake because of the Free SHS graduates.

“This an academic year which is receiving an avalanche of students; more than 50 percent more than the regular intake, and we are expecting a movement from about 90,000 to 145,000 [new admissions].”

“This is likely to be a major economic bumper harvest for universities,” Prof. Yankah said.

The concerns over the increase in fees have led to protests from some students.

A group known as the Concerned Tertiary Students of GIJ, for example, protested against increment of fees by some tertiary institutions in the country.

The group expressed fears some students would drop out of school due to the increment of the fees for the 2020/2021 academic year.