Member of Parliament for Pru East, Dr Kwabena Donkor, has expressed concern about what he considers to be growing sub-standard graduate programmes offered by some tertiary institutions across the country.

According to Dr Donkor, the duration of most master's programmes, especially weekend programmes, does not guarantee quality training and qualification for graduate students.

Speaking to JoyNews’ Kwaku Asante, he said: “You have a marketing programme, a full-time programme of one year and then you have a part-time, because there is no way an evening programme can be full-time, and yet we have evening programmes, weekend programmes of the same one-year duration, something must suffer.”

He explained that the essence of graduate education extends beyond the lecture halls as seminars and networking opportunities play an essential role in making the course holistic hence the time allocated to part-time schooling is insufficient.

Dr Donkor said Ghana is known across the sub-region for quality education; therefore, the Ministry of Education must ensure that the nation's reputation is maintained.

He called on the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) to crack the whip immediately to preserve Ghana's educational credibility.

“I am worried because Ghana is uniquely positioned in the West African sub-region to be the educational hub to attract students from across the sub-region, and also contribute to national revenue and the growth of our GDP, but if we bastardise the quality, we will lose that position.

“I therefore call on the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, the Ministry of Education and the government as a whole to take a second look at this money-making machine that we are introducing to our universities," he added.