A five-year Strategic Plan has been officially launched by the Governing Council of Jayee University College (JUC) to handle the fundamental challenges, policies and opportunities of the University College. The theme for the plan is "Customising Education to Meet Relevant Current Human Resource Needs: Implications for Private Tertiary Institutions". The Strategic Plan outlines the history, vision, mission and values of the college that calls for the review of the existing operations and policies with the growing trends of the global education and management world. In all, a budget of GH¢388,960 has been estimated for the five-year period. The guest speaker for the ceremony, Prof. Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, who is also the Chairman of the Governing Council of the college, pointed out that education needs in the country were not only restricted to tertiary education but also to the pre-tertiary education as well. He called on other private tertiary educational institutions to generate synergy between research and education institutions to help solve societal challenges. The guest speaker urged teachers and students to demonstrate entrepreneurship culture in their activities to become trained leaders in research as well as business industries. Prof. Anamuah-Mensah called on the government to put in place urgent strategies to enhance the educational systems in the country. He also appealed to the government to support private tertiary institutions to expand their research policies capable of strategising societal challenges. "Tertiary education has for a long period provided some sort of education for the youth in the society," he stated. He said available data indicated that about 49 private universities in the country had been accredited but noted that most of them lacked qualified human resource and financial resources to train the students. He, however, said some funding and adequate human resources should be put in place to rebrand these institutions. For his part, the President of the college, Mr John Emmanuel Donkoh, noted that having met and satisfied the requirements of the National Accreditation Board (NAB), the college had been accredited to run two faculties - Business Administration and Communication Science. Mr Donkoh stated that the partnership and affiliation with the University of Education, Winneba had brought a sharp growth and development of the college. "Indeed, it has ensured a progressive transformation in the education of journalists, mass communicators, as well as public relations practitioners in the country," he said. "In this era of knowledge economy, there is an urgent need to produce graduates in specialised disciplines, Fortunately, Jayee has trained students to obtain higher education to enable them to contribute more meaningfully to the country's development," Mr Donkoh added. He also said the collaboration had brought about innovation and radically transformed the mode of training of professionals aimed at equipping graduates with specific knowledge for efficiency and effectiveness to expose them to all opportunities of career development. Mr Donkoh appealed to the government to extend the GETFund facilities to private universities in the country. The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, who launched the five-year strategic plan, said the government would extend the GETFund facilities to all private tertiary institutions in the country. He said quality education should be given to the youth to build and sustain a knowledge-based society. Mr Tettey-Enyo also said private tertiary universities should not be profit oriented, but rather, they should be guided by achievable development. He congratulated the governing council on their laudable initiatives. Source: Daily Graphic