Clampdown on associations awarding qualifications

Ghana’s National Accreditation Board, or NAB, has said it is worried that professional associations have – without any authority – started enrolling unsuspecting students and awarding them qualifications. It has directed associations running ‘chartered institutes’ to cease operations.

NAB said in a statement that such initiatives did not have the board’s consent to award academic or professional qualifications.

It had “noted with concern the registration and operation of certain professional bodies as ‘chartered institutes’, which purport to award various professional qualifications such as certified tax accountants and chartered business analysts".

“These institutions parading themselves as ‘chartered’ professional bodies are, at best, voluntary associations and are not legally mandated to award academic or professional qualifications that may be accepted for purposes of academic, professional placement or progression.”

The board said that unlike recognised professional bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants – Ghana, the General Legal Council, and the Medical and Dental Council, “these so called chartered bodies by the mere fact of their registration with the Registrar General’s Department do not have professional or academic qualification awarding powers conferred on them.”

“The public being enticed to enrol in these institutions are forewarned that certificates so awarded by these 'chartered' professional bodies may not be recognised when submitted to NAB for evaluation and establishment of equivalences because they had not been authorised in the first place,” the Board added.

Colleges closed down

In a similar move, NAB announced the closing down of the AIM Professional College of Education in the Volta regional capital Ho, following the institution’s flouting of Tertiary Institutions Regulations.

“The revocation is as a result of the institution’s operation of campuses outside the authorised area of operation, Ho, without recourse to the board,” NAB said in a statement. It asked the public to take note of the withdrawal of accreditation and “desist from responding to advertisements enticing them to enrol”.

NAB also revoked the accreditation of J-Prompt Professional Institute to operate as a tutorial college. The cancellation of accreditation implied that it should immediately stop admitting new students into the professional graduate diploma in information technology and any other academic or professional programmes it purported to run, said NAB.

“The board’s decision is based on the conduct of J-Prompt Professional Institute’s flagrant disregard of all warnings not to run unaccredited programmes including medical assistantships throughout the country, in a move to prevent the mushrooming of such institutions of learning in the country.”

Further, NAB withdrew the accreditation of Meridian University College in Kasoa to operate as a private university from September 2014. Accordingly, all of Meridian’s students have been absorbed into West End University College, also in Kasoa, to complete their courses.