General News of Saturday, 3 September 2022
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2022-09-03Why University of Ghana, KNUST run unaccredited programmes
The two schools have been reported to be running about 600 unaccredited programmes
The University of Ghana, Legon, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology have been cited in the Auditor General’s latest report for running hundreds of unaccredited programmes.
According to the report, the university of Ghana is currently running 374 unaccredited programmes while KNUST is running 299 unaccredited programmes.
With confusion arising from various
Read full articlefronts after this revelation, many have wondered how two of the topmost tertiary institutions in the country have gotten away with this practice all these years.
But speaking to Samson Lardy Anyenini on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, September 3, 2022, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor in charge of Academic and Students Affairs at the University of Ghana, Prof Gordon Awandare, explained why the situation is so.
He stated that the bureaucratic process of obtaining accreditations for university programmes in Ghana makes the process very long, as such, tertiary institutions are unable to secure them in time.
“You should find a sample of a programme and look at its lifecycle of accreditation, from when it began to when it got accreditation. You’ll see that it takes years for these things to be done.”
Prof Awandare revealed that accreditations for university programmes are only valid for three years and due to the long process of acquiring one, the university is usually unable to renew them immediately after they expire.
“When you get the first accreditation for a programme it’s for only three years which means that by the time you get the accreditation, basically, you have to start the process all over to get reaccreditation or renewal.
“There’s a stampede of programmes that are going through this and the inefficiencies come to bear and then you have these lapses because the programme has not achieved the renewal in time before the previous accreditation has expired,” he added.
Prof Awandare however noted that the University of Ghana is working with the Ghana Tertiary Commission (GTEC) to renew the expired accreditation of some of its courses.
“If you look at many of the programmes that have been listed for UG in particular, most of them expired around 2018, 2019 and if you check many of them are in the process of being renewed so they’ve submitted documents to GTEC and they are at various stages of renewal.
“We’ve been working closely with GTEC, we have had several meetings with them and we have accepted the gaps and we’re trying to bring everything to regular. Rather than us apportioning blames, we should share the responsibility and dig ourselves out of this rubble,” He stated.
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor said authorities of UG have put measures in place to avoid such occurrences in future.
“We have now created an accreditation desk at the office of the registrar who works with my office to fast-track the process and ensure that communications are not lost in the process. There were instances where letters will come from GTEC and they are sent to the departments, others are sent to the registry, some are sent to the Vice Chancellor’s office and then several months go by and the letter doesn’t get to its proper destination for the needed action to be taken.”
Speaking on the same show, the University Relations Officer of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Norris Bekoe, who agreed with Prof Awandare, called for the decentralisation and digitalisation of the accreditation process to make it easier for all.
“There the need for us to digitize these programmes. To make it quite easy for us to accomplish. Otherwise, every year the Auditor General will flag programmes and we will have the same discussion,” he stressed.
