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The National Defence University is for all the security architecture and not for only the military, the Director-General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Professor Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor, has said.
He has, therefore, urged the various security bodies applying to GTEC for accreditation to run security related courses to rather host their programmes at the NDU.
“So, situations whereby GTEC in recent times have been receiving a lot of applications from many institutions, such as the police, customs and fire service, we want to use this opportunity to all on all of them to route their requests to the National Defence University,” he said.
Prof. Jinapor stated this when the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lt General William Agyapong, led a team to call on the Director-General and his staff.
Lt Gen Agyapong was accompanied by the former Commissioner-General of the Boundary Commission, Major Gen. Emmanuel Kotia (retd); the acting President of NDU, Air Vice Marshall Felix Asante, and the Protocol Officer for the CDS, Lt Col Sena Affanyi.
They discussed issues relating to the takeoff of NDU and other matters.
It was also to enable the CDS to introduce the foundation President of the university, Air Vice Marshall Asante, to the staff of GTEC.
Prof Jinapor urged the management of the university to stay focused on its mission, adding that “we don't want to see a mission drift. We want you to stay in whatever you are doing and do it well”.
He said even though the university had a charter to issue certificates, “I think it is also important for you to work to get an Act because that is the tradition within which public universities operate”.
“We had to get you the charter because we wanted you to be able to issue your certificates, especially because you were already a state institution where almost all your staff were on the government payroll,” Prof. Jinapor said.
He gave an assurance that GTEC would offer the necessary support required to get the university on its feet, saying “I think that you still qualify to be given any kind of support that a public tertiary institution is supposed to receive”.
The D-G commended the military as an institution with the highest level of discipline and said there was the need for such discipline to cascade down to the university.
“If this institution is able to stay and stand the test of time, I believe strongly that most of the issues that we deal with, in terms of security, in terms of discipline; and in fact, as a university you can even conduct tests in areas that have more or less relevance towards security and peace.
Lt Gen Agyapong explained that the visit was to “first introduce myself today as the Chief of the Defence Staff and secondly, to thank you for facilitating the chapter that our university was granted”.
He expressed his gratitude to Prof. Jinapor for being instrumental in spearheading the charter for the university.
Lt Gen Agyapong said the university still needed assistance for a quick start-up, adding they had already visited the management of GETFund.
