The Public Relations Officer of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Daniel Norris Bekoe has refuted portions of the Auditor General’s report that claimed that only 61 out of the 360 academic programs run by the university have been approved.
According to him, the university has acted in accordance with regulations set forth by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC).
In his defence, he stated that, applications for the approval of the said courses have already been submitted to GTEC, and that the University is not responsible for the delay.
He said this on OTEC FM’s Nyansapo show this morning.
“We have over 468 applications for existing programs, so when the documents are with GTEC, and they haven’t been worked on, there is a little delay. That is not to say, the university is running unaccredited programs.”
“KNUST existed long ago before the setting up of the National Accreditation Board and GTEC so most of these programs we are talking about have been running for over 70 years.”
“So how can one say that these programs that have trained some of the finest brains in this country are unaccredited?”
The Auditor-General’s report for 2021 noted that for the schools, “accreditation expired or requires re-accreditation during the period under review.”
He added that “These programs the Auditor-General is referring to are all existing programs that had been approved by GTEC and it baffles me when the Auditor-General reports that we are going contrary to the laid down procedures of a university.”
"It’s very true that KNUST currently has 468 programs on the tables of GTEC for re-accreditation but that does not necessarily mean these courses were not approved.”
"Let me put on record that these courses had already been approved but needed re-accreditation from GTEC after some changes were made even though we have fully submitted the program to GTEC a long time ago so it’s not our fault GTEC has been slow in approving it."