University of Ghana appoints first woman as Vice-Chancellor

A 49-year-old professor of linguistics at the University of Ghana, Nana Aba Amfo, will act as the new Vice-Chancellor of Ghana’s premier university from August 1.

A newly constituted council of the university appointed Prof. Amfo to an acting role on Monday, July 26. Her tenure will hold until the university appoints a substantive Vice-Chancellor.

The new Council of the University of Ghana was inaugurated and sworn in on Monday by the Minister of Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum, at the Conference Room of the Ministry of Education, Accra.

The new university council is chaired by Justice Sophia A.B. Akuffo.

In a short meeting after the inauguration of the new council, it considered Section 10 (2) (b) of the University of Ghana Act 2010 (Act 806), and Section 6(3) of the University of Ghana Statutes, and decided on the appointment of the senior of the two Pro Vice-Chancellors, to act.

Prof. Amfo was the Pro-Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for Academic and Student Affairs and will be the first woman to head the university, substantively or otherwise.

Politics of Vice-Chancellor appointment

The politics that shape the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of a university may soon be seriously influenced by the executive of any ruling government should a proposed Public University Bill (PUB) be passed.

In April 2019, the government through, the Ministry of Education, presented the Public Universities Bill to Parliament for approval.

The PUB would allow the President powers to appoint majority members on the university council; to close down any university and replace its governing council; allow the Minister of Education to give directives to the Universities on any matter, with which the Universities must comply; and take the process for admission of new students away from individual universities.

These additional powers to the president, the group says is a threat to Ghana’s democracy.

But various stakeholders in academia and corporate Ghana have fought against the passage of the bill.

Last year, the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) said the bill would:

[h]obble public universities by bringing them under the direct day-to-day management of the Minister of Education. Clause 47 of the Bill states, “The Minister may give directives on matters of policy through the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission to a public university and the public university shall comply”…In effect, the law would allow one person—the Minister of Education – to make decisions that currently go through due consideration by a number of institutionalized bodies, including the University Councils.

On their part, the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences described the PUB as “poorly motivated and unjustified”.