Beware of scammers! - GTEC cautions mature students

The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has cautioned the public to be wary of scammers who hide under the cover of entrance examination banners to dupe innocent students.

It said those advertisements, among others, usually indicated that the prospective candidates did not need to have a certificate of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) or Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) requirement to participate in the examination.

The GTEC, however, dismissed those claims, describing them as scams.

He therefore cautioned the public, especially adults seeking to pursue university education, to stay away from those adverts.

“Those adverts are carried out by fraudsters.

There is nowhere you can be admitted into a tertiary educational programme without any kind of certificate.

You need to have a foundation for you to be able to enter for a tertiary programme.

“I once again advise all those interested in sourcing tertiary education to stay away from them because you will be caught and the consequences would be unbearable,” the Deputy Director General of GTEC, Professor Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor, advised the public in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

His advice follows numerous posters scattered around urban centres inviting adults of 25 years and above who are interested in university education to contact some displayed telephone numbers provided for admission.

The advertisements, among others, assure prospective students that they do not need to have any certificate for the admission process.

The recipient universities used are usually the University of Ghana, University of Education, Winneba, and the University of Cape Coast.

Basic requirements

However, Prof. Jinapor said when the attention of GTEC was drawn to it and the universities cited were contacted, “They tell us they have no knowledge of it and that they do not have any contract with any agent to recruit adult students.”

He stressed, “there is nothing like being admitted as a mature student without any certificate.

You need to have some form of certificate.

Indeed, you need to have a foundation.”

Prof. Jinapor said for GTEC.

Admission requirements for mature students, the prospective candidate needed to have a credit in English and Mathematics and also pass an entrance examination depending on the way the particular university wanted it.

“Again, you need to have relevant work experience because you are given the opportunity to access tertiary education even though you do not meet the minimum requirement but because you have the requisite experience, that is why you are given that opportunity, “Prof. Jinapor explained.

Asked what GTEC is doing to prevent such activities, he said, “unfortunately, our laws do not give us the opportunity of going after them.

“Our laws say that if the person runs an unaccredited programme,” Prof. Jinapor revealed.

He explained further that GTEC did not really care about how the advertisement was done.

“If the advertisement is done on the website of the university or an accredited platform like a media platform, then we can pick the university on or that media house.

“Secondly, what we do is that we have what we call academic audit, which is periodic or ad hoc,” the DDG of the GTEC said, adding that if the commission suspected that a particular university was running unaccredited programmes, it went there to do the audit.