University of Ghana: 2021 Auditor-General’s Report Finds 374 Programmes Not Accredited

• The University of Ghana has been found to be running 374 programmes that do not have the NAB's approval in the year under review
• According to the Auditor-General's report, the courses span the Diploma, Undergraduage, Postgraduate and even PhD levels
• The Postgraduate level tops the list with 213 unaccredited programmes

The University of Ghana has been cited for running as many as 374 programmes that do not have the approval of the National Accreditation Board (NAB) in the year under review.

According to the report, 14 of the programmes are at the diploma level, 80 of them are undergraduate programmes, 213 are postgraduate courses and the remaining 67 PhD programmes.

The Auditor-General’s report explained that the accreditation for many of the programmes had expired while other needed to be re-accredited.

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The Auditor-General, Johnson Asiedu, recommended that the Management of the University “expedite action for accreditation and re-accreditation of all new and expired academic programmes respectively.”

Running unaccredited courses breaches Section 36 of the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023).

The Act makes it an offence for for someone to run or advertises a tertiary education programme that is not accredited by the NAB.

Education expert with the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has told YEN.com.gh in an exclusive interview that because many of the university programmes listed need reaccreditation, there is no cause for alarm.

He explained that reaccreditation processes typically aim at fine-tuning programmes to assess their response to the current needs of society and industry.

"Probably the students would have enrolled on the programme before the accreditation for the programme expired…so in that sense if it is reaccreditation, there is not much worry compared to if it is a new course. If it is a new course then it was wrong for the university to even start running it in the first place and even issue certificates," he told YEN.com.gh.

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Only 61 Out Of 360 Programmes Run By KNUST Are Accredited

In a related story, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has also been called out for running as many as 299 unaccredited programmes.

According to the 2021 Auditor-General’s report, of the 360 programmes run by the University, only 61 have been accredited.

The report explained that auditors discovered that 190 programmes had been sent to National Accreditation Board (NAB) for accreditation and reaccreditation, while 109 were yet to be sent to the board for accreditation.

“We recommended to Management to cease running programmes that are not accredited or having its accredited certificates expired until they are accredited or renewed, to avoid sanctions by NAB,” the state audit report warned.

Source: YEN.com.gh