There’s no reintroduction of quota system – GTEC boss dismisses reports

The Director-General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Professor Mohammed Salifu, has denied reports there is going to be a reintroduction of a quota system of admission for colleges of education in Ghana from the 2022/2023 academic year.

He said the statement issued on the total number of admissions permissible per college of education was just a usual agreement between the institutions and GTEC reached every year based on capacity.

“We just simply have to match the numbers with the existing facilities even as we invest in the infrastructure,” Prof Salifu explained on TV3‘s Midday Live on Wednesday, December 28.

“Hostel projects are all over the colleges now and there is work ongoing about the infrastructure thing and it is not different.

“In the past, we agreed with the colleges on what numbers to admit, it is just that this time we needed to be a lot more specific on that because we have had occasion where you give leverage to the principals and then one or two principals may take students more than what is required and then the classrooms become congested. That is one dimension.

“The other dimension is also is that our attention has been brought to the number of teachers that we are producing,” he added, further explaining that the three-year programme that the colleges are running is exactly the same thing that some of the universities that are involved in teacher education are also running.

“So, we are asked to bring more and more of them and who feel entitled to be posted and create spaces in the classroom for them.”
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He, therefore, insists there is no reintroduction as a result of inability to pay allowances as being peddled around.

“Every year before [the colleges] do the admissions, we agree on what numbers that they are supposed to admit [and] that is based on the capacity of the colleges.

“Our main concern is whether there will be quality delivery teaching and learning taking place in relation to the numbers and this year the dimension is that we have to look at the number of teachers that are being produced with the BSc programme, so GTEC comes to get more closely involved in that because we need to be sure that no college will go beyond the numbers that have been agreed.

“So, it’s as simple as that. We are not going back to some quota system which was implemented by whatever party. I don’t know where this reintroduction is coming from,” Prof Salifu told host Martin Asiedu-Dartey, adding that there is no such system”especially not because there is no money to pay teachers trainee allowance”.

“I think that is where the reintroduction narrative is coming from.”