The Hon. Member of Parliament for Bawku Central and a former Deputy minister for Education, Mahama Ayariga has called Parliament not to restrict lecturers from sourcing funds outside Ghana for their research works.
He made this comments today when the House was considering Education Regulatory Bodies Bill, 2019 saying, University lecturers must be allowed to source funds outside Ghana for their research works without necessarily submitting these funds to the national commission for tertiary education before allowing it for the purpose it was intended for.
Mr. Ayariga believe that, the regulatory bodies must focus on funds coming from Ghana government but not external funds so as not to discourage lecturers from conducting research.
But the Education Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh explained why all research funds both External and internal must be channel through regulatory bodies for scrutiny before releasing them to the lecturers for their research works.
He sighted an example where University of Ghana Legon, went for a loan to conduct a research work but the money was mismanaged without achieving the purpose, leaving a huge debt of 80 million Dollars and 500 millions Ghana Cedis respectively hanging on the neck of government as at today.
He concluded his contribution by saying, for accountability and monitoring sake, all funds must go through the regulatory bodies.
Finally, the Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye advised that, University lecturers and their research works must be handled with care so as not to discourage them since there are many foundations that assist research works which did not attract any approval from these education bodies.
