The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has approved about 1,000 university programmes in the third quarter of 2023 in line with efforts to ensure the institutions run only accredited programmes.
The lifting of the restriction on the accreditation of some academic programmes, imposed last year because of document irregularities in their certification, has been scheduled for February 1, 2024.
The Director-General of GTEC, Prof. Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor, announced this at a meeting with heads of technical universities in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
He said the commission was able to clear much of the backlog of accreditation applications by introducing a digital platform known as the Accelerated Accreditation Approach to speed up accreditation processes.
He noted that the platform was to ensure that GTEC cleared the backlog of accreditation issues so that all programmes would be in good standing within the shortest possible time.
Prof. Jinapor entreated heads of tertiary institutions to stick to their core mandate in rolling out programmes.
“Beginning February 2024, we are going to accept new programmes from institutions.
“But as we have already indicated in our previous letter, you need to demonstrate that you have a clean sheet,” he said.
He stated that the accreditation culture must be tuned to compliance, devoid of non-adherence and praised the current leadership of tertiary institutions for their positive attitude towards rectifying problems they inherited.
He said GTEC had begun publishing unaccredited programmes and centres in newspapers and on the commission’s website.
He, therefore, cautioned the public against accepting offers from institutions to study unaccredited programmes.
The D-G said the commission would also submit a list of unaccredited programmes and centres to government agencies so they would not employ people with certificates of unaccredited courses.
He advised the public to visit the commission’s website to check accredited courses to guide them in their choices.
He said the measures formed part of efforts by the regulatory body to sanitise the accreditation environment in universities in the country.
ISD
