Encourage specialisation of courses in Private Tertiary institutions - Government urged

Council of Independent Universities in Ghana have called on government to intervene and review regulations by the Accreditation Board to enable private tertiary universities run specialized courses. Several stakeholders who converged at the 12th anniversary of the Council of Independent themed; Favourable and equal opportunities for universities in Ghana unanimously agreed that stringent regulations by the Accreditation Board was creating dire consequences for the private tertiary institutions.

Speaking at the programme, Rector of Mount Crest University College and former Director of the Ghana School of Law noted that cited some challenges facing particularly private tertiary institutions which they needed addressed.

“… what I’m suggesting is that we should encourage specialization so if a service provider is specializing in only law, like Mount Crest, I could’ve set it up as a university for legal studies; just that and I can also be allowed to use the label, university college, but they’ll not because it’s only one faculty…” he stated

He continued that the measures in place for specialization was quite on the high as the demands were too much.

“…you’ll need at least three faculties and the three should be broken into at least five departments… so we should be allowed to specialize” he added

Prof. Ansah Asare noted that public universities had the sole responsibility to mentor their private counterparts and not compete with them as is being observed in recent times. He decried the incidence of public tertiary institutions competing with them for student enrollments as well as hiring of lecturers and personnel whose names are presented for promotions.