NAB seeks mandate to crack whip on tertiary institutions flouting regulations
The National Accreditation Board (NAB) is seeking the mandate to empower it to crack the whip on institutions flouting the rules and regulations governing tertiary education in the country.
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The National Executive Secretary of the board, Mr Kwame Dattey, who said that, announced that the board was taking steps to amend the National Accreditation Board Act, 2007, and added that when amended, the Act would empower the board to close down unaccredited institutions.
Mr Dattey made the statement on Thursday, at a lecture to mark the 63rd Founders Day anniversary of the Keta Senior High School in Accra.
The lecture was on the theme: “Liberalisation of tertiary education in Ghana – Implications for the labour market.”
Speaking on the topic, “The role of the National Accreditation Board in regulating standards and best practices in tertiary education in Ghana,” Mr Dattey said currently, the Act did not empower NAB to sanction erring institutions.
Accreditation status
He advised students seeking admissions to tertiary institutions to always check their accreditation status, as well as the programmes they ran, before enrolling.
Mr Dattey also advised employers to check the authenticity and equivalence of certificates of their employees and potential employees with the board to be sure that those employees held genuine certificates.
National Qualifications Framework
He announced that the NAB was also planning to develop a National Qualifications Framework (NQF), which classified qualifications by level, based on learning outcomes.
“This classification reflects the content and profile of qualifications – that is, what the holder of a certificate or diploma is expected to know, understand and be able to do,” he explained.
Mr Dattey further explained that when completed, the NQF would provide the parameters within which to comprehensively determine the equivalences of certificates and what it would take to earn a certain qualification.
Complaint section
He announced that the board had also set up a complaint section to receive all complaints from the general public and respond to enquiries bordering on accreditation of tertiary education institutions and programmes and other related matters.
He assured the public that the NAB was committed to a continuous process of ensuring that high standards and best practices were adopted and maintained to ensure that, “together with stakeholders, we can create a vibrant educational sector that will produce graduates who can compete globally”.
On proliferation of unaccredited institutions, Mr Dattey said NAB had taken note of a number of unaccredited institutions purported to be running tertiary education programmes "and deceiving the unsuspecting public".
He said the legislation that established the NAB did not empower it to close down institutions in the country and explained that "when such cases arise, the best the board can do is to advise the minister of education to take the necessary course of action".
Labour market
Speaking on the topic, "Calibre of graduates from the tertiary institutions," the First Vice Chair for the Eastern and Volta regions of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Mr Dela Gadzanku noted that many graduates faced difficulties in finding jobs, because of the mismatch between their education and the labour market requirements.
