Issue of unaccredited programmes must end

In 2022, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament’s report from almost all the public universities showed that many of their programmes were either not accredited or their acreditation had expired.

Following that revelation, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) took a decision to ban the introduction of new programmes in all public universities from October, 2023 to January, 2024.

The decision, though punitive, was to ensure that public universities take steps to rectify all such abnormalities within that period to enable them to submit new programmes.

Some of the affected universities defended their unlawful act by blaming GTEC for unnecessarily delaying the processing of accreditation documents, a situation which compelled them to run unaccredited programmes.

The Daily Graphic finds that excuse as lame because deciding on their own volition to run unaccredited programmes is not only wrong but could potentially jeopardise the future of the students who apply for such programmes.

We believe that the decision the GTEC took was in the right direction to ensure that within a three-month period the universities would have done the needful.

To avoid such pitfalls, students must always cross-check on the GTEC website to be sure that the institution or the programmes they are applying for are accredited.

But the fact remains that any student applying for admission to the public universities will have no reason to think that they are running unaccredited programmes.

Anyway, the good thing is that GTEC has found a way around it with the introduction of a software known as the Accreditation Management Information System (AMIS), which enables tertiary institutions to apply for accreditation conveniently without being present physically at the commission's offices.

The pioneering institutions are the University for Development Studies (UDS), Tamale Technical University, Community Nursing Training College, Tamale; New Life College, Tamale; Nurses and Midwives’ Training College, Tamale, and the C. K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS), Navrongo.

The rest are the Bolgatanga Technical University, Regentropfen College of Applied Sciences, Bolgatanga; Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD UBIDS), Wa; Dr Hilla Limann Technical University, Wa, and Nursing Training College, Wa.

It is commendable that these 11 tertiary institutions have subscribed to the system, and we call on all other tertiary institutions to also adopt the software to facilitate the accreditation process.

We see this system as one that will support the delivery of quality tertiary education in the country by simplifying and enhancing accreditation application processes.

The launch of the AMIS, which forms part of efforts by the commission to enhance transparency, accountability and convenience for stakeholders, also seeks to provide timely feedback to applicants on updates of the processes and status of their applications.

Hopefully, the AMIS will end the traditional manual process of accreditation which relies heavily on the availability of human resources to prepare and track the processes.

The Director-General of GTEC, Prof. Ahmed Jinapor, who launched AMIS, expressed confidence that in no time, all tertiary institutions in the country would come on board because the benefits were huge.

Surely, the benefits are enormous and particularly so because in this era of technology and digitisation, we have no choice but to move along.

As Prof. Jinapor said, AMIS was done elsewhere and had proven to be an efficient, effective and useful tool for smooth accreditation processes. Ghana has no excuse not to run with it.

We will hold the feet of GTEC to the fire to ensure that it carries out its determination to rid the tertiary education space of unregistered programmes and institutions and to make sure that any programme run by any institution is duly accredited. 

The Daily Graphic charges the GTEC to get tough with those institutions that may want to drag their feet and still continue to run unaccredited programmes.

We see AMIS as the panacea for the issue of unaccredited programmes and institutions.

We must not allow our students to toil in vain.