GTEC freezes new programmes accreditation for some universities

The management of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) following the Auditor-General report has suspended accreditation for new programmes by universities that have not fully renewed already running programmes

Speaking to Daily Graphic, the Deputy Director-General of GTEC, Professor Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor said his outfit next month will begin a serial publication of unaccredited programmes and centres in newspapers and on its website.

He also said the Commission would submit the list of unaccredited programmes and centres to all government agencies so that they would not employ anybody who had a certificate for a programme that was not accredited.

“The public is to resist offers from institutions to study such unaccredited courses. They are always to visit the GTEC’s website to be sure that they did not accept to pursue programmes that had not been accredited,” he said.

The move the Director of the Tertiary Commission said formed part of major steps by the regulatory body to sanitise the accreditation environment to ensure that no university in the country ran unaccredited programmes.

“We are going to put a moratorium on acceptance of new applications until all the accreditation environment is sanitised, and the caveat is that not all institutions are culpable,” Professor Jinapor told the Graphic newspaper.

The Commission’s Director in the interview added “We believe that the general public will not be motivated to apply for such programmes, and that will serve as demotivation to the institutions running those programmes.”

Reacting to complaints by authorities of various universities that they run such unaccredited programmes due to approval delays, Prof. Jinapor said an excuse could not be the basis for which unaccredited programmes were run.

There has been a culture of non-adherence to accreditation. There has been a systemic attitude of universities not adhering to accreditations because historically, universities have positioned themselves as independent and autonomous bodies,’ he said.

His comment comes after the the Kumasi Technical University (KsTU) formerly known as Kumasi Polytechnic was cited in the 2021 Auditor General’s Report as running 32 programmes not accredited by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission.

They include five Master of Technology programmes, nine Bachelor of Technology programmes, 17 Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes and one Diploma programme.

The more than 30 unaccredited programmes came to light when the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament began its sitting to consider the 2021 academic year Auditor General’s Report referred to the committee.

The PAC said institutions running unaccredited programmes was an issue that affected students negatively when they later applied to pursue higher programmes at other universities.