Kwame Dattey – Executive Secretary of NAB
The rate at which some Ghanaians are receiving degrees from questionable online institutions of higher learning, all within a short period, has attracted the attention of the National Accreditation Board (NAB).
Executive Secretary of the NAB, Kwame Dattey, last week, told DAILY GUIDE exclusively that such cases are prevalent at the PhD level and something must be done about it without any further delay in order to protect the country’s academic integrity.
A PhD is a globally recognized postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and higher education institutions to a candidate who has submitted a thesis or dissertation, based on extensive and original research in their chosen field and it normally takes a minimum of two years with no maximum limit to complete.
Nicaragua Example
According to the Executive Secretary, some candidates are using eight months to complete their PhDs from what he called ‘phony’ institutions abroad and added that all those involved are coming from the field of Business Administration.
“It is not that we don’t have institutions that offer PhD programmes. Why are people suddenly doing online masters programmes. Why are they drifting to places like Nicaragua and others?” he said, adding “this SMC thing that got into the papers sometime ago, people go there and say they have done Doctor of Business Administration then they say they have an arrangement with Nicaragua so they do eight months and they award them a PhD.”
He said “I am sending a paper to the board. We should come out clearly and announce that we don’t recognize these institutions and let’s see what people will do. Why are they going there? Why online?”
Local Courses
Explaining issues, Mr. Dattey said “If somebody is doing PhD in Cape Coast, he can even identify somebody in Legon who is also in the area and form a supervisory team. They can be supervised so why are they going to enroll online?”
He said “I am doing my PhD in Groningen, the Netherlands. They know me and can identify my handwriting. I cannot get anybody to write for me but people sit here and say I am Dr. this and I have got this and that,” adding “there is too much academic fraud in the system.”
Unaccredited Institutions
The Executive Secretary said that a lot of people have acquired qualifications from unaccredited institutions and are holding sensitive positions.
“Sometime, some of them try to claim that in the United States, for instance, accreditation is not compulsory but what they do not say is that if your institution is not accredited by the recognized accrediting body, your students will never get federal or state funding,” adding “when we are here, they think we don’t know what is happening there so they come here trying to push those things to us.”
Qualifications Board
He said he is in favour of what he called ‘a qualifications board’ that will vet candidates with fraudulent academic credentials.
He said the NAB has been assisting state institutions like the Public Services Commission (PSC) to investigate the academic backgrounds of people appointed to serve the public.
He also urged the tertiary institutions to assert their rights in rejecting candidates with poor grades, saying “if you are an employer you can say you are rejecting online degree certificates to teach in your institution and nobody can take you to court for that.”
“You have your standards. The NAB deals with the minimum standards and you can set yours higher. The minimum standards for teaching in the university is MPhil but a university can say as for us we don’t want MPhil, we want PhD. They have every right to do that.”
By William Yaw Owusu