Authorities at the Kumasi Technical University (KTU) are raising concerns about possible challenges over the school’s new status as its conversion is yet to receive the corresponding state funding and support.
KTU Acting Vice Chancellor, Professor Asiamah Yeboah, said he envisages infrastructural challenges as the university introduces more programmes in the 2017/2018 academic year.
In September last year, government signed into law a bill to convert eight out of the nations 10 polytechnics into technical universities.
But seven months after assuming university status, beneficiaries are yet to receive support to improve infrastructure and other logistics.
“We are all in transition. We were converted in September 2016 and remember or don’t forget that there was also going to be election in December 2016. So I believe that the government attention by then was on the election and we have also had a new government. We just even had a new government.
“We just even had the budget just beginning of this month so I am pretty sure that the government will support us because the conversion cannot be just only mouth conversion that we’ve converted polytechnics into technical university without the accompanying infrastructure.
So I believe that the government when settled will give us the necessary support but as we speak, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of other resources, we have not received anything from the government yet,” Prof Asiamah explained.
Though Prof Asiamah Yeboah is hopeful of government support, he admits the school’s new status brings a lot of pressure on infrastructure.
The then Kumasi Polytechnic was ranked first among all polytechnics in the country.
Authorities have been busy formulating new policies to match its technical university status at a special retreat.
Besides these policies, authorities want to see infrastructure improved as they introduce top-up programmes for HND holders and 4-year bachelor degree programmes.
Prof Asiamah envisages the infrastructural challenges as authorities submit 29 more programmes to the National Accreditation Board for approval.
“It’s very very critical because assuming we are running about say 30 programmes with the existing infrastructure and we add 20 or 29 or even 10, because even when we were running the HND and the top-up programmes, we were still in difficulty.
“It got to a point that we even hired some rooms and lecture halls from New Oxford Preparatory School. So now that we are going to add all these programmes, then I will say it is very very critical for us”.
