Education Minister inaugurates NDU Governing Council, announces $25m seed funding

Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu inaugurated the 15-member Governing Council of the National Defence University (NDU) in Accra, revealing a US$25 million government seed funding commitment. The University aims to consolidate and enhance the Ghana Armed Forces' (GAF) tertiary education programs, focusing on strategic leadership, defence education, research, and national security policy development.

The Council's mission is to establish a center of excellence for high-level strategic studies, operational readiness, and African-led peace and security policy formulation. President John Dramani Mahama expressed his expectation that the university would bolster military-civil relations and consolidate democratic gains in Ghana.

The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) is allocating special resources to sponsor at least 10 faculty members to achieve PhD qualifications or professorial ranks. The Council will oversee the transition of constituent institutions into a unified university, maintaining the merit-based culture of the GAF. It will establish a robust governance framework, develop a transition agreement, safeguard academic quality, and create a strategic plan to ensure the university's success is measured by graduate quality, research relevance, and national security contributions.

The NDU will equip graduates with critical thinking, ethical judgment, and strategic foresight to tackle complex security, defence, and governance challenges at various levels. The University's motto, "Knowledge, Service and Integrity," will guide its operations, currently taking place in the Command Officers' Mess at Burma Camp while the main campus under construction in Whistler Barracks, Teshie, is being built.