Accra, May 20, GNA - Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, Minister of Education, has announced that "government is contemplating establishing an open university as part of its agenda to widen access to tertiary education".

He said this facility, which would be the first of its kind was a measure to solve infrastructural problems at the public universities and enable qualified students to pursue tertiary programmes wherever they might be in the country.

Mr Tettey-Enyo, was addressing the opening session of a two-day retreat on the theme: "Accreditation and Quality Assurance: An Introspection", for members of National Accreditation Board (NAB) in Accra on Thursday. He said in addition, government would encourage authorities of polytechnics to introduce distance education.

"Government is also encouraging expansion of distance education in the universities to promote access," the Minister added.

The retreat, the first for NAB members, who took office in June last year, was to take stock of their activities and project for the future to improve tertiary education in the country.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said government was committed to increasing access to tertiary education and it would continue to provide broad policy framework to encourage private participation in the provision of tertiary education.. He said training of human capital was necessary for effective leadership and the pursuit of economic development adding that this underpinned government's policy to encourage provision of quality education at all levels of the education system.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said tertiary education was emerging as an internatio= nal commodity, stressing that Ghana needed to keep abreast of the trends. He gave the assurance that government was committed to providing adequate infrastructure and other facilities to all public tertiary institutions to promote quality education.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said government would continue to pursue the policy o= f differentiation of institutions, programmes and the shift towards technic= al and vocational education and training in higher education. He noted that Ghana had earned much international acclamation for th= e quality of her education making the country a hub for international students. Mr Tettey-Enyo charged members of NAB to ensure that the country's tertiary education system continued to be responsive to the needs of the fast changing world to enable graduates attain standards comparable to th= e best anywhere else.

He called on members of NAB to consider the student-lecturer ratio, gender parity and provision of access to the poor and socially deprived w= hen granting accreditation to institutions. Mr. Tettey-Enyo called on them to continue to critically evaluate private provision of tertiary education to ensure the maintainace of high=

standards that had been set.

He gave the assurance that government would continue to resource NAB to enable it play its role effectively in the tertiary education sector. Dr Joseph Annan, Deputy Minister in-charge of Tertiary Education, challenged members of NAB to restructure accreditation to ensure that educational institutions did not only produce graduates but materials that were needed by the market.

He said such graduates or human resource must match the country's development aspirations, adding that they should not only compete with others elsewhere but should be seen to be continually improving in the market. Professor Daniel Afedzi Akyeampong, Chairman of NAB, gave the assura= nce that members of NAB would continue to maintain the high standards require= d in acquiring accreditation and to check accredited institutions to ensure=

that graduates churned out would be the best of quality needed in the market.