The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana Professor Ernest Aryeetey has urged government to allow managers of public Universities in the country to charge fees in order to fund themselves.

His comments come after Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur said public universities in the country must prepare for the future where government will cut funding to their universities.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the African Universities’ Summit at the University of Ghana, the vice President disclosed that future developments could compel government to channel such resources into other sectors of the economy.

“As we develop, other needs will come and at some point, the GETFund will have to stop and that is the place where the crisis will occur.

“So we need to anticipate and prepare for the future of no GETFund because we may need the fund to do other things in environment, climate change and so on and therefore the university will be put in a position that it has to rely on its own devices,” Mr. Amissah-Arthur said.

But Prof. Aryeetey in a response said the structure must change so public universities are able to charge fees as they deem fit.

“As the vice president rightly said, [there is] dependence on government but the structure was such that we could depend only on government.

“It was the government that said that we shouldn’t charge school fees. So if the government was not allowing us to charge school fees, then the government must be willing to pay,” Prof. Aryeetey said.