Accreditation Board Nab Five Unaccredited Institutions

The National Accreditation Board (NAB) says Day Spring Christian University of Mississippi, Pan African Clergy Council and Bible College, Global Centre for Transformational Leadership, and World Council for Evangelical Clergy cannot confer honorary degrees and professional titles in Ghana NAB stressed that the spate of conferment of honorary degrees and professorial titles on some important personalities by these unaccredited institutions, contravention of Regulation 19 (1) of the Tertiary Institutions (Establishment and Accreditation) Regulation, 2010 (L.I. 1984). The five institutions are not qualified to award degrees on their own or other institutions NAB Executive Director Mr Kwame Dettey stated stressing that the conferment of honorary degrees is the prerogative of degree awarding institutions so mandated. Therefore any personality awarded honorary degree or professional title by any of the five unaccredited institution must desist from using such titles; �we wish to advise these innocent personalities to stop using such titles in their own interest to avoid public embarrassment. �Its only accredited private tertiary institutions operating under the mentorship of chartered, degree-awarding universities are qualified by themselves to confer honorary degrees. �An accredited institution shall not issue certificates or award its own degrees, diplomas or honorary degree without a charter granted to it for that purpose by the President�. Mr Dettey said there are also instances where some foreign institutions confer such honorary degrees, particularly doctorate degrees on prominent personalities with intent to legitimize and popularize the operations of the institutions in Ghana, and thereby seek to attract unsuspecting students to enroll in them. �It must be made clear that universities and other tertiary education institutions which are unaccredited by the relevant authorities in their home countries cannot be authorized to award any degree- regular or honorary in Ghana,� he said. The National Accreditation Board therefore wishes to caution the general public and advise that distinguished personalities invited for such awards should verify the accreditation status and degree-awarding powers of the institutions that seek to confer on them honorary degrees to avoid any embarrassing fallouts.