Tertiary education in Ghana is defined in the Report of the President’s Committee on Review of Education Reforms in Ghana (2002:xxxvi) as the education offered after secondary level at a university, polytechnic, specialized institutions, open university and any other institutions to provide training that lead to the award of diploma and degree qualifications. Tertiary institutions provide the platform for training people in all spheres of human endeavour such as the humanities, sciences and technology, which are the driving forces of development.
In post-independence Ghana, three universities were established to offer tertiary education - the University of Ghana (UG) in 1948, followed by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (UST), 1952, and the University of Cape Coast (UCC), 1962. UG offers Liberal Arts and professional courses, including Medicine, Law, Agriculture, Engineering and Business Studies. KNUST is primarily a science and technology university. UCC was set up to prepare teachers for secondary schools, and offers its Arts and Science courses in that context. In the last two decades, two additional public universities have been established. These are the University of Education, Winneba (UEW) 1992 and the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale 1992. In addition there are a number of Regional Polytechnics, which have been elevated to tertiary status. Since 1998 a number of private institutions, mostly denomination-based, have also been given government accreditation to offer degree-level courses.
The expansion of tertiary institutions has not been able to meet the increasing demand for tertiary education. Although, there has been significant expansion in enrolment in tertiary education, the participation rate of the age-group 18-21 years in tertiary institutions in the country is as low as 2.5% compared to 30-40% for the corresponding age group in some developed countries.
There is a general problem of access to tertiary education in the country. Access has been defined as places and facilities available for potential applicants (Ghana, 2002). Available statistics indicate that from 1996-2001, only about 32% on the average, of qualified applicants for admission into the universities, and about 54% of same for admission into the polytechnics, were actually admitted. The figures have not changed much over the period. For the 2005/2006 academic year, 55% of qualified applicants were admitted into all the public universities and 78% into the polytechnics. For the same period, statistics indicate that the male-female enrolment for both the universities and polytechnics has increased slightly meanwhile the gap is still very wide. In 2005/2006 academic year the male to female enrolment ratio was 65:35 for the universities and 70:30 for the polytechnics. This is far below the national norm of 50% males to 50% females (NCTE, (2006).
To help bridge the gender gap in education, especially at the tertiary level there have been several interventions such as an affirmative action in the public universities to lower the aggregate by one for women. This resulted in 33% enrolment of women in public universities during the 2003/4 academic year (MOWAC, 2004). Meanwhile, parity still remains an issue at the tertiary level and retention of girls from basic to the tertiary level is challenging. Most institutions do not apply the Affirmative Action Policy of recruiting more girls probably due to the limited vacancy and the increasing number of applicants. These are challenges that DE could be used to address due to the nature of its delivery.
The underlying factors that have been identified as accounting for the situation of limited access to tertiary education include the following:
Ø Existing tertiary institutions are unable to meet the high demand for tertiary education, which has arisen out of the rapid growth in population and the expansion in pre-tertiary education, following the introduction of the educational reforms in 1987.
Ø Mismatch between existing academic facilities and physical infrastructure on the one hand, and the increasing number of students admitted into tertiary institutions on the other.
Ø Limited opportunities and avenues for working people and those who, for one reason or the other, have had to terminate their education for a period to re-enter or acquire higher education through other modes.
Ø Public tertiary institutions being originally developed as residential institutions because of their national character and the model adopted.
Ø The existing structures and facilities in tertiary institutions providing limited and in some cases, no access for people with disabilities and special needs.
The following deficiencies also exist in the structure of tertiary education in Ghana which calls for alternative modes of delivery:
Ø Limited opportunities for academic and professional progression, especially for those who enter the technical/vocational streams
Ø Limited opportunities for those who end their education at senior secondary school level and decide to re-enter the formal system at a later point in time
Ø Inadequate opportunities for life-long learning
These are challenges that make DE an ultimate choice. In recognition of the challenges that limit access to tertiary education in the country, and the potential of the universities to admit more qualified students in an alternative delivery mode, the Government has recommended the promotion of DE and the establishment of open universities as one of the key measures for widening access in its current educational reform.
Ghana has a history in DE. According to Ansere (2002) the provision of DE in Ghana predates the attainment of the country's political independence in 1957. Records show that some members of the educated and political elite during the pre-independence era used what was then called Correspondence Courses to further their education and training. Notable examples were J. B. Danquah and Kwame Nkrumah. They did this because there was hardly any higher education institution in the country at the time. Aggor et al (1992) also note that as far back as March 1964, there was recognition that DE and correspondence delivery was needed to serve the needs of Ghanaians, the society in which they live and the country as a whole. University committees and senior administrators have also long realised and advocated the pivotal contribution that DE could provide for tertiary education system and societal development.
As early as the mid-1980s, the universities began to look to DE for a cost-effective solution to the problem of limited access to tertiary education. In 1986 a sub committee of the Academic Planning Committee of the University of Ghana recommended that DE be explored as at least a partial solution to the university’s problems of space and staffing. From the early 1990s this option began to receive government attention (Spronk, 1999). This marked the beginning of exploring the potential of using DE to address the excessive demand for tertiary education in the country and for that matter widening access to tertiary education. Following this was continuous effort by government and development partners to establish DE programmes in all the public universities in the country, thus to turn the universities into dual mode institutions.
Since the 1990s development partners like UNESCO, and some foreign educational institutions like The Commonwealth of Learning, University Partnerships in Cooperation and Development Programme (UPCD) and Simon Fraser University have supported local interventions to help establish DE in Ghana. Notable among these efforts are the following:
Ø Survey on DE in Ghana initiated by the Ministry of Education and conducted by The Commonwealth of Learning in June, 1992. This study helped to identify the tertiary educational needs in the country and made several recommendations for implementation of DE.
Ø Ghana DE Development Project - a review of DE needs in the country, in response to request from Ministry of Education to UNESCO. The study which was conducted in June 1994 enforced the initial study and recommended systems that need to be put in place for effective implementation of DE.
Ø Ghana DE Development Project. The project proposal was submitted to 1994 UPCD Tier Two Competition by Simon Fraser University and won the award in September 1995 for implementation. The five-year project was for building the national level DE consortium and developing the university-level expertise and programming as recommended in the various reports on DE.
Ø Mid-Term Evaluation of the Ghana DE Development Project by the UPCD Tier Two project and conducted by Barbara Spronk in April 1999. This evaluative study helped to assess the progress of implementation of DE and made recommendations for the way forward.
One wonders the extent to which these interventions have yielded results. To date only two public Universities, UCC and UEW have made remarkable impact in promoting DE at the tertiary level. The University of Education Winneba which began its DE programme in 1998 has approximately 7000 and University of Cape Coast which began in 2001 has 17,000 students. The Government of Ghana has not given up on harnessing the potential of DE to widen access to tertiary education in the country, most especially for the marginalised in education.
In its most recent educational reforms, the Government of Ghana set up a committee to review the educational policy of the country to respond to current trends of development. The report has made several recommendations for tertiary education in Ghana which include the promotion of DE. The report notes that tertiary education is key for human resource development in Ghana and recommends massive promotion of DE at the tertiary level. The Report proposes the establishment of an Open University and Open Colleges in the country.
The Open University is to provide work-study programmes through distance learning using both print and electronic delivery systems for students and workers to acquire higher education. The Open community colleges on the other hand are to provide avenues for further studies/training for those who may end their education at the JSS/SSS levels, and meet the multiplicity of needs of different learners as well as encourage life-long learning. This is endorsed in the Government’s White Paper on the report of the Education Reform Committee (Ghana 2002).
The White Paper indicates that the concept of Open University will create further opportunities for education for all. When properly established, the Open University will satisfy the need for further education opportunities for the large numbers of people who require further education. DE is no doubt emerging as the mode that meets the educational needs of the country. Obviously, DE could help tertiary institutions to achieve the national norm of 50 males to 50 females in enrolment.
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