The Deputy Director General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Professor Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor, says it is not automatic for an institution to receive accreditation after it has tended in its application.

According to him, there are specific criteria tertiary institutions must meet before they are given accreditation to run courses.

According to him, his outfit had noticed that some tertiary institutions start running programmes after applying for accreditation which he says is wrong.

Read also: We’ll publish unaccredited programmes run by universities – GTEC

Speaking on the Pulse on JoyNews, he said “This idea needs to fade, you cannot publish a programme on the premise that you have applied for accreditation. If you apply for a job or you apply for admission into a school, there is no guarantee that you are going to be admitted.

“So, if you have applied for accreditation and the process is ongoing you have no right to more or less advertise or recruit students.”

When asked why the GTEC would not sanction schools for non-compliance, he said, “we have had the problem that has festered all this while. You cannot come and jail people or put people in cells when in actual fact the attitude towards accreditation has been non-existent.”

Prof Jinapor said in order to ensure that institutions follow the right process and get accreditation before running courses, it will begin with publishing in newspapers names of unaccredited programmes the various institutions were running to deter people from applying for those courses which will also push the schools to do the right thing.

“I am tempted to believe that if you see in the publication that Bsc Economics at school A, is unaccredited you will not venture to go and apply."

He added that his outfit was working round the clock to ensure that all tertiary institutions run accredited courses. Until then, he charged the managers of institutions to ensure that the right thing is done.

The Auditor-General’s 2021 report has revealed that 374 academic programmes at the University of Ghana are unaccredited.

Out of the 374 courses, 14 of them are Diploma programmes, 80 of the 374 programmes are Undergraduate courses, Post-Graduate unaccredited courses are 213, and 67 Ph.D. courses.

According to the auditors, “The University advertised 374 academic programmes on the various web portals that had the accreditation expired or requires re-accreditation during the period under review,” portions of the report indicated.