A Deputy Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has state that the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) will decide the fate of embattled Vice Chancellor (VC) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor K. Obiri-Danso.
According to the Deputy Minister, with the exclusion of the VC from the seven-member Interim Council formed by the government on Thursday, the responsibility is on the NCTE to determine whether Professor Obiri-Danso will be retained or not.
The government constituted the Interim Council after it dissolved the previous one following a high-level meeting it held with all stakeholders in the Ashanti Region over the impasse between KNUST authorities and students.
Speaking on Onua FM’s Yen Sempa on Friday, October 26, Dr. Adutwum told host Bright Kwasi Asempa that “National Council for Tertiary Education will talk to the VC so that the issue will be handled by the Council”.
“The government has the authority to let things work and that is what it has done. You can’t force the government to include the Vice Chancellor in the Interim Council,” he explained.
“The president has the prerogative to ensure that the University runs successfully because if the children are home, it will affect the accreditation and all directives that are given to the university globally,” he said.
UTAG exclusion justified!
He said arguments about the exclusion of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) from the Interim Council, is unjustified.
“Some of the university executives and lecturers are part of the IMC,” he said, “besides, the government does not have the right to seek the approval of the Vice Chancellor on the decision to include or exclude him from the IMC.”
Dr. Adutwum noted that the Ministerial delegation that visited the University a day after the destruction “met the Council and the VC was there. The Ministers even asked him some questions.”
By Kweku Antwi-Otoo|3news.com| Ghana