Information reaching DAILY GUIDE indicates that an Accra-based tertiary institution – Trans Africa University College - is offering admissions to students, mostly from the West African sub-region and charging them huge sums of money, despite the fact that most of its programmes are not accredited.
Some of the aggrieved students came to the office of DAILY GUIDE in Accra yesterday to reveal the development to the paper.
According to them, the courses being run by the college as per their investigations are not accredited by the National Accreditation Board (NAB).
Despite their findings and protests, they claimed Trans Africa University College continues to run the courses and charges exorbitant fees – $1,700.00 per academic year.
“The college presented a certificate to us that it is a degree awarding college duly accredited by NAB,” spokesperson for the students (name withheld) - most of who are Nigerians offering Journalism and Communication Studies course, Business Administration, among others – told DAILY GUIDE.
“We contacted the National Accreditation Board and we were told that Trans Africa University College is not an accredited institution. And the PRO of NAB told us that we are wasting our time and money in the school,” he asserted.
Aside the fact that the university college’s authorities had succeeded in making the students believe that the school is fully accredited, they had also reportedly succeeded in making the students believe that the school is fully affiliated to the University of Education, Winneba (UEW).
However, investigations conducted by the aggrieved students, according to them, revealed that Trans Africa University College had not been able to complete its affiliation process with UEW, thereby making the fate of the students - who are envisaging completing their courses with recognized degree for the job market – hang in the balance.
“We went to Winneba to find out whether the school is fully affiliated or not and the deputy director of UEW told us the college reached the stage one of its affiliation but did not complete the process,” according to the spokesperson.
“He also told us that the college was to only run certificate programmes as per the affiliation arrangement and that for them they are not aware of the fact that Trans Africa is running degree programmes,” he averred.
Meanwhile, director of the institution, Samuel Segbefia, speaking to this paper, dismissed the claim that the school had not been accredited.
According to him, his outfit was fully accredited by the National Accreditation Board to run Diploma and Advanced Diploma Courses but that it was only its degree courses that had not been accredited.
“All courses have been accredited to the diploma and advanced diploma level and we are in the process of getting accreditation for our top-up courses,” he said adding, “And we have signed an agreement with students to resolve that by the close of this year.”
Mr Segbefia further argued that Trans Africa University College was fully affiliated to UEW and that the affiliation agreement was entered into in 2012.
Meanwhile, Checks by DAILY GUIDE also indicated that the school is not accredited to run either diploma or degree programmes.
All efforts to get NAB to respond to the issue proved futile.
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