Private Universities in the country are experiencing high attrition rates, Professor Daniels Obeng-Ofori, the Vice President of the Catholic University of Ghana (CUG) has said.

He expressed worry about the rate at which senior lecturers, especially those with PhDs were leaving and "abandoning" private universities to other public institutions basically, due to poor condition of service.

In an interview with Sompa FM at the university's main campus at Fiapre in the Sunyani Municipality, Prof Obeng-Ofori said many of the private universities were struggling to improve the condition of service of lecturers to maintain them.

"The CUG is trying to increase basic salary by 20 percent and also enhance book and research allowances for lecturers to stay" he stated, saying "since we get money only from students we need to get more students so that we can get more resources to improve their condition of service for them to stay".

"Sometimes you employ somebody, sponsor him or her to get a PhD and they leave. That is a major challenge facing all the public universities in the country", Prof Obeng-Ofori stated.

Prof Obeng-Ofori lobbied for private investor partnership to improve the university's infrastructure development and meet the growing student demand.

He emphasised that the CUG required urgent investment to expand the universities hostel facilities, saying the student population was growing and the hostels were inadequate to accommodate them.

Sompaonline.com/K.Peprah