The Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has called for a thorough debate on the proposed Public Universities Bill.
The Bill is among the 36 expected to be presented in Parliament today May, 19, 2020.
Mr Iddrisu believes that there is the need to involve major stakeholders in the debate because this will cover them.
“We have to allow for more thorough scrutiny and open thorough debate when we look at the principles of the Bill. UTAG, Vice-Chancellors and students are stakeholders so you just don’t make a law, it must respond to certain needs so if the stakeholder you are making the law for feels dissatisfied you need to rethink it”.
It will be recalled that Mr Iddrisu early this month also called for the withdrawal of the Pre-tertiary Education Bill 2019 currently before Parliament for more thorough and broad consultation with stakeholders.
“I am not basically against decentralisation or decentralised roles in basic education but there are legitimate and major concerns raised by stakeholders. So my plea to the President is for him to withdraw the bill for a more thorough national consultation and discussions on it,” he stated.
The new Public Universities Bill signed by the Education Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh seeks to regulate the activities of public universities under one law.
The proposed law seeks to change the structure of the governing councils of the public universities with the majority of the members being appointed by the President.