The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has acted again. Until the Commission started raising concern and taking action against the use of unearned academic titles, many had hardly heard about this state agency.
As a key regulator in the education sector, we have now come to appreciate the importance of this agency. Now we know that all the PhDs being flaunted about are real.
Last week, the agency marked out six University of Ghana learning centres in some parts of the country for not being compliant and so unfit to operate.
Just mulling over the action, we are wondering why it took the agency so long to act; the horses have left the barn already. It would be instructive to know how many students and parents have parted with hard-earned cash for admission into such centres whose certificates are now worthless.
Besides these centres, many so-called private tertiary institutions have been operating unknowingly to most Ghanaians, without the appropriate formal authorisation to do so.
The regulator, it would appear, slept on its assignment thereby allowing so many persons to be fleeced by the unrecognised schools. So what happens to the already issued certificates? Worthless?
We think that GTEC should be queried for allowing the anomalies to have persisted until now.
With many desperate students seeking tertiary education by all means, their vulnerability is often exploited by persons who are not qualified to operate schools they present to the public.
We demand that public education by GTEC be carried out so the public will know the quality of schools they intend attending. In fact, schools unqualified to operate should not even be allowed to do so in the first place. With social media and even traditional ones in abundance for advertisements, desperate students will always fall victims to such schools.
An enforcement unit should also be considered for GTEC whose main role would be to undertake surprise visits to unaccredited schools to spare unsuspecting persons the agony of losing money.
Education is expensive and so those who part with money to acquire it must be sure about what they are getting. That is why we are concerned that these centres and schools have operated for this long until now.
It is our hope that GTEC is going to proceed beyond announcing to take the necessary regulatory measures against the unaccredited institutions. They must proceed to the location of the said schools and ensure that they shut their doors.
For those who have parted with cash, they must be supported to retrieve their monies.
In cases where the issues are about renewal of operating licences, we think the schools must be encouraged to do so immediately.
As for those not meeting the minimum standards and are for instance operating in churches, compounds of proprietors and not even having the qualified lecturers to undertake the academic work required of them, they should not be allowed to continue the flagrant disregard for the GTEC order.
Visits to institutions who meet the standards of operating should be a regular assignment of GTEC so the right things are done. Better late than never as the dictum says is applicable here.