A Ghanaian-United States of America based legal practitioner, Dr Stephen Kwaku Asare has urged President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to halt the planned renaming of public universities in the country.
Kwaku Azar, as he is popularly called, in series of Facebook posts expressed his displeasure about the renaming which he described as a political self-aggrandisement.
“I am against renaming public universities after politicians. Very few, if any, of our politicians, have been that inspiring or done enough to warrant such an honour.
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“These universities have been built on the back of farmers, miners, fishermen, truck drivers, hardworking mothers and we can, if we want, honour these people. Enough of the political self-aggrandisement,” he noted.
To Dr Asare,public universities are seldom named after individuals because they are publicly funded and so the names are given for specific purposes.
“Unlike private universities which are named after their founders, the state institutions are given names based on location or purpose but many private universities are named after a benefactor.
“For instance, Harvard is named after Pastor Harvard who gave most of his estate to fund the school in the 17th century. In contrast, public universities are seldom named after anyone because they are publicly funded,” he revealed.
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Dr Asare further argued that there is so much work to do in the basic schools “so it is unclear to me why this renaming exercise is going on. The government should get out of the public universities renaming business.”
In another post, he expressed wonder as to what was wrong with maintaining the original names of the public universities.
“Jerry John Rawlings University of Development Studies, Nana Opoku Ampomah University of Professional Studies, Komla Gbedemah University of Health and Allied Sciences and Kofi Abrefa Busia University of Energy and Natural Resources?
“What is wrong with the simple words of University of Ghana, University of Science and Technology, and University of Cape Coast, University of Education, Winneba, University of Development Studies,
University of Health and Allied Sciences , University of Professional Studies, and University of Energy and Natural Resources ?” he asked.
Source: Adomonline.com/ Gertrude Otchere