Managing Partisan Confusion On Campuses To Deliver True Education

Universities in the country have been veritable bastions, particularly of national democratic journeys.

This was particularly evident in the military regimes of Kutu Acheampong. More manifest was the contribution of academia to the development of our current national strides in the good governance construction space as we have it today.

It was suppressed in the era of the Jerry Rawlings administration but found vent after 1992, when it became evident that Jerry Rawlings and his lieutenants wanted more than they had asked for and taken by force.

Today, however, what we are seeing is a relief compared to the eras before 2000, when open and veiled threats from our jackboot’s regime numbed political ambition, including candidates openly showing to stand or contest for an opposition party and particularly, the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Up to 2004, when the threat fizzled with the Jerry Rawlings and NDC defeat, we would be having open primaries with self-made candidates showing up as the turf became less intriguing and the NDC was compelled to thaw in its ideology and regard for good governance and particularly press freedom.

Coming of age

It was both when political parties realised the contribution of university students to the polling, monitoring and collation processes that the politician decided to groom them to establish bases on campuses with a voter mobilisation agenda.

Since then, we have had TEIN and TESCON probably replacing hard core academia eggheads as campaign teams and fulcrums in strengthening parties in regions where we have universities.

While these could not be a replacement for the very vibrant Kakraba Cromwells and Arthur Kennedys as well Lord Commeys and Dan Botwes, they would be showing promise to the point of even accessing appointments in both administrations.

Unfortunately, where we have expected maturity from them, what we are experiencing is chaos, confusion and confrontation – with little respect for their academic dons.

Abrasive

The Inquirer believes that is the point the Otumfuo, Nana Osei Tutu II was making in expressing worry about how some tertiary institutions have allowed the abrasive political division in the country to permeate their sacred campuses and turn them into battlegrounds for partisan combats, instead of havens for imbibing and dispensing knowledge.

In his opinion, priorities and vision of students to become somebody was being sacrificed on the altars of political opportunism.

The way of this confusion is certainly deal with that poison of partisanship in reversing the situation to optimise the impact of politics on the nation’s socio-economic advancement.

The Asantehene hit the nail on the head, when he stated that the trend is counter-productive because it hasn’t culminated in any evidence of meaningful collaboration that existed between the state and the universities that healthily lead to socio-economic growth in other jurisdictions.

In that regard, despite the promises made by politicians to link academia to industry as is the global norm, we are allowing politics on the campuses to infect, instead of reignite collaboration to impact industry.

“It is time, in my view, for all of us to wake up to the negative impact this has caused and efforts made to reverse the situation,” Otumfuo Osei Tutu said.

He therefore stressed the need to fashion a new relationship between state and academia that engaged the expertise of academia in the process of policy formulation on a continuous basis.

The Inquirer stands with the Asantehene on that score. The reason is that, at a time that development experts are advocating holistic education politicians are squeezing manpower in our tertiary institutions into narrow partisan patriots who become leech, feeding on relief, instead of skilled and ingenious graduates making waves in industry to help create jobs.

The Inquirer believes this a sad spectacle when what we have expected over the decades is an education that produces the critical human resource that is able to help the politician to solve societal problems.

This disconnect, in the opinion of The Inquirer must be flushed and a more Ghana First approach put in place, if we can emulate Rwanda, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia or Mauritius.

Source:inquirernewsroom.com