Ghana often wakes up to tragic headlines from our healthcare system. Patients die not necessarily because medical science fails them, but because hospitals simply have “no beds.”
In a recent commentary, Prof. Jonathan Laryea argued that Ghana’s persistent “No Bed Syndrome” reflects deeper policy and infrastructure failures rather than the shortcomings of frontline healthcare workers. His argument invites us to rethink how national systems are planned and resourced.
Yet the problem he describes is not confined to hospitals. Those of us working within Ghana’s public university system see a strikingly similar pattern emerging across our tertiary institutions.
If hospitals struggle with “no beds,” universities increasingly face their own versions of the same crisis: no lecture rooms, inadequate accommodation, overstretched staff, and infrastructure that has not kept pace with expanding student numbers.
The University Version of “No Bed Syndrome”
At the beginning of every academic year, many Ghanaian universities confront a familiar challenge. Lecture halls designed for 200 students now host 400 or even 500. Some students stand throughout lectures while others attend classes in shifts simply because space does not exist.
Accommodation tells a similar story. Most public universities can house only about 30–40 percent of their student population on campus. The majority must therefore seek housing in surrounding communities, often at significant cost and sometimes under conditions that are not conducive to academic work.
Like hospitals struggling to admit patients due to limited bed capacity, universities are struggling to absorb increasing student enrolment because infrastructure has not kept pace with expansion.
Expansion Without Matching Investment
Over the past two decades, Ghana has commendably expanded access to higher education. New universities have been established, polytechnics have been upgraded into technical universities, and thousands more students now have the opportunity to pursue tertiary education.
However, this expansion has not been matched by proportional investment in lecture halls, laboratories, libraries, residential facilities, and digital infrastructure.
As a result, universities now operate far beyond their originally designed capacities. When systems operate permanently under such strain, the resulting pressures are often misinterpreted as administrative or academic inefficiency when they are in fact structural policy challenges.
Academic Quality Under Pressure
Just as treating patients on hospital floors compromises clinical outcomes, overcrowded lecture halls inevitably affect the quality of teaching and learning.
A lecturer responsible for hundreds of students cannot reasonably provide individualized academic guidance, detailed feedback on assignments, or effective supervision of research work. Laboratory sessions often become demonstrations rather than hands-on learning experiences.
Postgraduate supervision also suffers when experienced faculty members are overstretched. Under such conditions, the challenge should not be framed as a failure of administrators and lecturers to maintain standards but rather as the consequence of a system stretched beyond its sustainable limits.
Staffing Constraints and the Retirement Directive
The pressures within universities have been further intensified by recent directives from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission requiring staff to retire strictly on the day they attain the statutory retirement age—even when that date falls in the middle of an academic semester.
Historically, universities allowed staff who reached retirement age during the academic year to remain in service until the end of the academic cycle. This practical arrangement ensured continuity in administrative duties, teaching, supervision, and examinations.
The new directive disrupts that long-standing practice. A lecturer may begin teaching a course at the start of a semester but be required to exit the system abruptly halfway through the academic calendar.
Recruitment Freeze and the Growing Staff Gap
To compound the problem, all public universities currently do not have government clearance to recruit new staff.
This means that when experienced lecturers, administrators, or laboratory technologists retire, their positions often remain vacant. Each retirement therefore widens the already troubling gap between student numbers and available academic staff.
The result is a troubling paradox: universities cannot recruit new staff because clearance has not been granted, yet existing staff are required to retire strictly on their birth dates.
Reimagining the Role of GETFund
Any serious conversation about strengthening Ghana’s universities must also revisit the strategic role of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).
It is important to remember that GETFund itself emerged from the determined agitations of student leaders who recognized the urgent need for sustainable financing of education infrastructure in Ghana.
Over the years, GETFund has made significant contributions to building lecture theatres, libraries, and residential facilities across many public institutions.
However, the demands of modern higher education require us to rethink how this critical national resource is deployed. Universities today are not merely teaching institutions. They are centers of research, innovation, and technological development.
Many higher education institutions are struggling with outdated infrastructure. Critical needs include modern IT systems, agricultural machinery for training students in mechanized agriculture, artificial intelligence laboratories, multipurpose research laboratories, and advanced scientific equipment required for contemporary teaching and research.
Repurposing and strategically expanding the focus of GETFund to support teaching, research, and innovation in higher education institutions would therefore be a timely intervention.
The Stakes for National Development
The implications of these challenges extend far beyond the university campus.
Universities are the institutions through which a nation trains its administrators, doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, scientists, and innovators. When the tertiary education system becomes overstretched, the quality of that training inevitably comes under pressure.
Human capital remains the most valuable asset of any nation, and its development depends heavily on the strength and stability of the higher education system.
A Call for Strategic Policy Action
Just as the “No Bed Syndrome” cannot be solved by instructing doctors to be more compassionate without expanding hospital capacity, the challenges facing Ghana’s universities cannot be resolved without deliberate policy reforms.
Government must prioritize the expansion of university infrastructure, accelerate recruitment approvals to replace retiring staff, review retirement transition arrangements within academic calendars, and strategically deploy GETFund resources to strengthen teaching and research capacity.
Universities are engines of national development and innovation. Strengthening them is essential for Ghana’s future.
By:
- Rev. Amoah Karikari Kwaku (Senior Assistant Registrar, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani) President, Ghana Association of University Administrators- UENR Branch.
- Mr. Charles Kojo Aidoo (Senior Assistant Registrar, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani) Secretary, Ghana Association of University Administrators- UENR Branch.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com