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The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has flagged some 149 institutions for running open distance learning across the country without accreditation.
Director-General of GTEC, Professor Ahmed Abdulai Jinapor said the institutions were closed down because they are “unfit for purpose”.
He made the pronouncement at a two-day capacity building workshop on Ghana Open and Distance Learning ( ODL ) policy implementation strategies for national quality assurance and tertiary education stakeholders meeting in Accra.
According to Prof. Abdulai Jinapor, distance learning is not merely an alternative mode of education, but a central pillar for broadening access, promoting equity, and driving innovation in tertiary education.
However, he said some facilities used for the distance education are unapproved.
“Unfortunately, distance education seems to be replaced with distancing education. Distancing education manifesting in institutions moving across this country to replicate what is happening in traditional classrooms cannot be deemed as distance education.
“In fact, as we speak, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission has flagged some 149 distance learning centers that we think are not fit for purpose. These centers are found in second cycle institutions, institutions that are overstretched as a result of the double track.
“We have centers being organized in churches, public services, public works departments, electricity companies. In fact, we cannot allow this to happen,” he stated.
He also emphasized that the Commission has issued a moratorium for institutions to go through the due processes to acquire authorization for running these programmes and in the right environment.
“As a commission, we’ve issued a moratorium to all these institutions to teach our students in these centers and to seek accreditation for facilities that are fit for purpose. Today, we are launching this particular policy involving quality assurance .
“What we’ve realized as a commission is that quality assurance in most of these institutions becomes overly transactional. Institutions do what they are supposed to do to please us and once we leave, then it’s business as usual. We cannot allow that,” he noted.
On his part , the Commonwealth Consultant for the Open Distance Learning Policy , Professor Olugbemiro Jegede said Ghana must come to an agreement as to what open distance learning is and guide its implementation.
“What are you doing? Which is fantastic. However, we must begin from the beginning. And that’s where we think it’s better for us, not only to listen to aspects of the policy that has been put out, we should actually come to a concerted, a negotiated agreement as to what distance-learning means.
“What does distance-learning mean? If I ask everybody, we’ll have more than 40 different answers. But we want to have a single, negotiated understanding of what distance-learning means, as well as what open-learning means. There’s a difference between distance-learning and open-learning,” he added.
Source: myghanadaily
