News and Ideas (32)
Tertiary education is an inseparable component in the development of every nation state while research activities of universities provide a crucial support for national innovation and the development of new products and services, Prof. Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, former Vice Chancellor, University of Education, Winneba, has stated.
Prof. Anamuah-Mensah, who was delivering the key note address at the opening of the National Summit on Tertiary Education in Accra, last week, indicated that tertiary education was integral to the achievement of the national vision of a just, free and prosperous Ghana that supported economic development, productivity and broad-based social development.
He said the prosperity of Ghana depended on the quality of education of its citizens, particularly the leadership, and that the vision of the nation could only be realized through a world class tertiary education system that was accessible, internationally competitive, efficient, diversified and enabling Ghana to be a productive knowledge-based economy.
However, he said, the current state of Ghana’s tertiary education system did not provide opportunity for developing entrepreneurial and innovative skills and the realization of such a vision.
However, over the past three decades, beginning in the 1980s, in spite of increases in the number of higher education institutions, the sector has been bedevilled with several challenges that have blighted its fortunes and raised serious questions about the role and relevance of Nigerian universities and other tertiary education institutions to national development. The contributors to this book offer authoritative and eloquent accounts of these challenges and explicitly draw out the policy implications on how the challenges can be overcome in order for Nigerian higher education institutions to regain relevance to the developmental imperatives of the country, especially in the 21st century and beyond.
This book will be of great value to students, leaders of higher education institutions, and policy makers in government and the private sector to chart new policy directions to revitalise the Nigerian higher education sector in order to be responsive to the needs of the country and its people, especially the teeming population of restless youths.
