The Rector of the Kumasi Polytechnic Professor Nicholas Nsowah Nuamah has jumped to the defense of government as it faces criticisms over the conversion of polytechnics into technical universities.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana Professor Ernest Aryeetey among other academicians have strongly criticised the move.

Professor Aryeetey who spoke on Starr Chat last week questioned the consultation process and the haste with which government is rolling out the conversion exercise.

“I believe a nation like ours needs a solid foundation for technical education and that is what the polytechnics were created for.

“They have evolved over the years moving further away from the ideal of solid technical and vocational education. That worries me; I’m worried because the conversion from being polytechnics into Technical Universities has been premised on factors that I don’t think are important,” he told Bola Ray.

He continued: “I know that many of my colleagues will disagree with me but that is my opinion; I would have strongly kicked against the conversion largely because the type of education polytechnics are to provide are still relevant and very desirable for our nation.

“So as the change occurs I wonder how we’re going to find the technical people that we want as a country to make our economy what it should be. We want to have a more restructured economy, there’s no way you can do this without a strong application of new technologies and that is what polytechnics are there for and we are moving away from making our polytechnics more technical and rather making them more academic; and that is most unfortunate. I know I’m going to receive a lot of flak but I stand by my opinion,” he told Bola Ray.

Responding to the comments however, Professor Nsowah Nuamah told Starr News the claims by the Legon boss are baseless and are not situated on empirical analysis of the situation.

“..Is it the HND that we are running that gives the country strong foundation he (Aryeetey) is talking about? No. Is that how we want to develop the technical education in Ghana? That for some people their limit is the HND regardless of how brilliant they are. In the same universities, when the students finish the HND, then they take them to go and do top up, now leaving the technical training they have; the competency-based education we have given them to go and do the academic things he is talking about.

“The polytechnic being converted to technical university does not move us from technical training and technical education,” he stressed.