SOME TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS MUST LIVE UP T0 THE EXPECTATION
Every now and then, we come across several news reports in the internet and on the front pages of some newspapers that, invariably, dents the initiative of government to the licensing of some private individuals or groups to establish private tertiary institutions (Universities). This has personally been my keen interest as a final year student of Catholic University College of Ghana (CUCG) and also as a former local President of the Private Universities Students' Association of Ghana (PUSAG) to add my quota in addressing this very important issue.
Last year in the month of August 2nd, it was published in the media that some final-year students of the University College of Management Studies (UCOMS), Accra were told to rewrite the West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) before they would be awarded their university degrees. The students were said to had been admitted to the university with poor grades with some aggregates as low as 29. Early this year in 5th January, 2012 a similar problem when the National Accreditation Board revoked the accreditation of Ideas University College, Sunyani in accordance with section 11(b) of the National Accreditation Act 774.
Furthermore, what had happened in Central University with some 695 students withdrawn by the National Accreditation Board when they did not possess the requisite grades that qualify them into the University simply spells out that some of our tertiary institutions are negligent for refusing to take queue of caution to prevent such disasters.
The bottom-line of this issue is that any time these challenges erupt; students are always the main victims of these situations which are as a result of institutional failures and negligence.
I will give credence to the National Accreditation Board (NAB) for their objective role in ensuring that both schools and students have the requisite structures or qualifications in place to offer programmes and learn respectively in the tertiary institutions. Let me state emphatically that, until some tertiary institutions are brought to book and extremely punished for their indiscriminate breach of Act 774, the situation is going to continue to endanger the academic life of students who want to seek higher education. It seems also that any time a school is found culpable in such cases, the punishment they serve from the National Accreditation Board in terms of the revocation of their accreditation is not enough to deter others, therefore, it must be extreme.
With regard to the 695 students of Central University College who were from the school, I charge the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Private Universities Students' Association of Ghana (PUSAG) to keenly take this matter up seriously on behalf of those innocent students to conduct a thorough investigation into this matter and from there sue the school for their incessant negligence which finally exploited and wasted the academic life of the students. I will also humbly suggest that with their role in advocating for the entire students in the Private Universities, they should ensure that those beleaguered students are fully satisfied with their reparations.
I am on this note hoping and entreating our academic institutions to take note of this to prevent these open scandals. Also students and parents must ensure that they and their wards respectively, get the required qualifications to enroll in any tertiary institution so that henceforth we can help build a strong and prosperous society with much in human resources and void of such retrogressive challenges.
Signed: Michael Sumaila Mahama
Catholic University College of Ghana
(Erstwhile Local PUSAG President)
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