GOVEERNMENT ENCOURAGES MORE PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES (PAGE 11, DEC 7)

THE acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Professor Paul Nobel Buatsi, has said the government’s encouragement of the establishment of private universities is to ensure that every qualified Ghanaian attains higher education.
He said the establishment of private universities would also help to ease the pressure on the public universities.
Prof. Buatsi said this when he represented the Deputy Minister of Education, Mr J. S. Annan, at the inauguration of the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Programme Alumni Association of Ghana ( IFPAAG).
Prof. Buatsi said the government recognised the fact that the International Fellowships Programme (IFP) did not only provide opportunities to Ghanaians to study abroad but entreated the beneficiaries of its programmes to return to their respective countries to serve their people with the acquired skills.
He also noted that the IFP’s conscious inclusion of the elderly and the disabled into the scheme had accorded them opportunities to attain their aspirations.
“It was in this direction that the government of Ghana was grateful to the Ford Foundation and other scholarship schemes for offering opportunities for Ghanaians to study abroad taking into consideration the high cost of education,” he stated.
The association is intended to create effective network for all members, build the capacity of IFP alumni and sustain their passion for social justice and support initiatives which promote communities.
Ford Foundation International Fellowship is a programme that gives assistance to exceptional individuals from 22 countries, who have not had the opportunity to pursue post-graduate degree programmes.
The immediate past President of the IFPAAG, Ms Irene Bibiana Bangpuori, said the fellowship did not request its beneficiaries to sign a bond to return to their respective countries but had 60 per cent return rate, one of the highest in the country.
She said the IFP alumni association would serve as a platform for credible leaders, who would influence policy and decision-making at the national, regional and district levels as well as to support the emergence of new change agents in West Africa.
For her part, the Director of Local Government, Dr Esther Offei-Aboagye, said she was humbled by the selection requirements and the range of community initiatives and the level of innovation.
Yolande Zahler, the Director of IFP unit at the Institute of International Education in New York, said since the inception of IFP in 2001 with the largest grant made by the Ford Foundation to higher education, totalling $330 million approximately, fellows had been selected in 22 countries of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Russia and Latin America where the foundation held its active programmes.
She said 3,300 fellows had enrolled in over 530 universities in 45 countries; one -third studied in the United Staes of America, one - third in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, and one- third in their own countries or region.