GTEC gives date to lift tertiary new programmes accreditation ban

After suspending accreditation of new programmes for tertiary institutions in 2023, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has slated Thursday, February 1, this year, to lift the ban on new programmes accreditation.

This comes after the Tertiary Education Commission in line with efforts to ensure the institutions run only accredited programmes. approved about 1,000 university academic programmes in the third quarter of the 2023 academic year.

The Director-General of GTEC, Prof. Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor, says the commission was able to clear much of the backlog of accreditation applications through the introduction of a digital platform known as the Accelerated Accreditation Approach which sought to speed up accreditation processes for programmes of universities.

The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission Director said that the platform was to ensure that his outfit cleared the backlog of accreditation issues so that all programmes would be in good standing within the shortest possible time.

Advising heads of tertiary institutions to stick to their core mandate in conformity with laid down procedures in rolling out programmes, he said “Beginning February 2024, we are going to accept new programmes from institutions

The GTEC Director said 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.

Commenting on tertiary institutions running unaccredited programmes Professor Jinapor further said that GTEC had begun a serial publication of unaccredited programmes and centres in newspapers and on the commission’s website.

The Commission’s Director-General indicated that his outfit would also submit a list of unaccredited programmes and centres to government agencies for them not to employ people with certificates of unaccredited courses.

As part of measures formed to sanitise the accreditation environment in universities in the country, he advised the public to always visit GTEC’s website where accredited courses would be published to guide them in their choices.