Ghana, notwithstanding the fact that the sale had taken place and included the assets and liabilities of Ghana Telecom, including the University.
Mr Speaker, I also had the difficulty but privilege to first recommend to Prof. Mills of blessed memory, how to constitute an academic governance structure, following the acceptance of Vodafone to give away the school, together with other things to the State of Ghana. I recall inviting Prof. Walter Alhassan, former Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to provide academic leadership, to situate this particular university --
What is particularly heart-warming is that, your good self, later, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, Mr Ben Aggrey Ntim and myself have done all that is right within the ICT infrastructure of Ghana. We have laid the foundation and there is a legal framework which governs ICT. We have invested in ICT infrastructure.
What is missing in Ghana, which I believe this university should focus on, is e-applications. Now that we have the infrastructure, for instance, e- Justice, e-Parliament, e-Commerce, e-Procurement and e-Health, how do we as a country take advantage of it?
That would naturally require the hands-on training in ICT. That is why I totally support this Bill. Mr Speaker, yes, it can be on its own. At the time, I discussed with Prof William Otoo Ellis, the Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), KNUST was providing support. Honestly, my thinking at the time was that this institution could have been the Accra campus or affiliate of
KNUST.
My other caution is that many a time, when we say “in the object” and I refer you to the Committee's Report, where they said in the second paragraph which I quote with permission:
“The Committee after a thorough consideration of the Bill is of the view that a university with a focus on information communications technology would produce skilled workforce that would help speed up the productivity gains of our country.”
Mr Speaker, I pray that tomorrow, this university too does not drift into other areas from this primary mandate of Information Communication Technology related training and in grooming young people in Information Technology.
Mr Speaker, when we come to page 7 of the Report of the Committee again, I worry about the aims of the university. It says, on; to promote education, training and capacity building in academic disciplines. That is general and we should narrow them to promote education, training and capacity building in information communications technology academic disciplines so that tomorrow they too do not come and say they want to introduce marketing, law and other research.
Mr Speaker, when we go further, it says, to provide global consultancy services to build the private and public sectors. That is useful. Are they only going to promote basic and applied research? We need to enhance what they would do.
Mr Speaker, finally, on the name of the university, the Committee observed that with the passage of the Bill, GTUC shall be named as the Ghana Communication Technology University. We could as well maintain GTUC or just call it Ghana Technology University. That is what it is known for, instead of trying to reintroduce new words. GTUC is its name currently. Instead of maintaining “Telecom”, we now say “Technology”, so, it could be called Ghana Technology University College
and maintain the GTUC without necessarily -- [Interruption] -- It is a suggestion; this is Second Reading.
I already said my thinking was that it could be an affiliate campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and I still strongly believe that there must be a strong academic nexus between the KNUST and this institution.
Mr Speaker, with this, I support the Motion.
I thank you for the opportunity.
