The Methodist University College, Ghana (MUCG) has stated that qualifications of students admitted to the university have always been made known to the National Accreditation Board (NAB).
The college said its requirements for admission to degree programmes had always been stated in applications for accreditation of programmes run by it.
A statement signed by the Registrar of the MUCG, Mr Justice Nii Aryeetey, expressed surprise at the turn of events.
The college was reacting to a recent threat by the NAB to withhold the accreditation of the school if it failed to withdraw 1,465 students admitted for the 2011/2012 academic year.
The statement explained that NAB had never, before its 2012 academic audit, queried MUCG’s entry requirements for admission to degree programmes, adding that the entry qualifications had always been stated in documents accompanying all the university applications for accreditation and re-accreditation of academic programmes.
In February, this year, the National Accreditation Board (NAB) ordered the MUCG to withdraw 1,465 unqualified students it had admitted to various degree programmes by the end of April, this year.
The order followed an audit inspection conducted by the NAB at the university which found out that some of the students who were at various levels were admitted with only proficiency certificates in Computer Studies and other courses.
Others had not attained grade C6 or less in one, two or all three of the core subjects such as Mathematics, English and Integrated Science or Social Studies in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Subsequently, the NAB, in June, this year, further ordered the college to suspend admissions until it adhered to the directive to withdraw 1,465 unqualified students it had admitted to pursue various degree courses.
In response to the order, the university made submissions to the NAB on the issue, prompting the Quality Assurance Committee of the board to schedule a meeting to determine the fate of the affected students.
At the end of that meeting, the board stood by its order to the university to withdraw the unqualified students by the end of April, this year.
Presenting its side of the story, the MUCG further explained that its academic programmes had been accredited, and some had even been re-accredited, and certificates of programmes accredited issued several times over.
On the contrary, it stated that the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and NAB minimum requirements for entry into tertiary educational institutions and requirements were essentially for Senior School Certificate Examination and West African Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE/WASSCE) holders and did not include those of other categories of applications.
To that effect, the Conference of Heads of Private Universities (CHPUG) issued a press release in which it said it found the new admission requirement ‘unprogressive’ and called for its review.
The statement said by the time MUCG received the directives from NAB about the new requirements, the admission process for the 2011/2012 academic year had commenced.
In view of the anticipated disruption of the admission process and possible detrimental effects of the immediate implications of the directives, the MUCG observed that CHPUG requested that implementation of the new admission requirement be deferred for a year but that was not done.
It said subsequently, NAB sent a panel of academic auditors to ascertain the basis of admission of students admitted by MUCG for the 2011/2012 academic year without declaring the exact basis of what they had come to seek and the panel reported to NAB that they had found 1,465 “unqualified students” who had been admitted by MUCG.
The statement said in response, MUCG raised objection to that and pointed out that whatever the basis of the audit, it was seriously flawed as not all students admitted were school candidates.
“MUCG had in the past with implicit approval of NAB admitted students with other qualifications, in particular professional qualifications. All these were lumped together as unqualified,” it observed.
It said in the process of making every effort to bring rationality in the matter, NAB imposed sanctions, preventing the university from either advertising or admitting fresh students for the 2012/2013 academic year.
Moreover, all attempts at an amicable resolution with NAB, the college stated, proved futile, and it was only after the intervention of the Minister of Education that some concessions were agreed with all parties to the dispute which permitted holders of Higher National Diploma (HND) with deficiencies in their SSCE/ WASSCE grades to continue with their study programmes but remedy the deficiencies before graduation.
By that time, it said, MUCG had already withdrawn admission of all school candidates who did not meet the new requirement of NCTE/ NAB and students in the 1,465 identified by the audit panel who were matured students had also had their admission letters withdrawn at a time when they had completed one academic year’s work.
“Mature students had in the meantime been cleared by the University of Ghana which is our mentor institution so that those mature students identified by NAB as unqualified were in fact not unqualified,” it indicated.
Notwithstanding, the university has resorted to helping students whose admission for the 2011/2012 was withdrawn from the university, following the directives of the NAB to withdraw 1,465 unqualified students.
It said those students who would meet the new requirement from the NAB would be re-admitted to continue where they left off.
However, students who were admitted with Diploma in Business Studies (DBS) qualification would not be re-admitted, following the new requirement by the NAB that DBS is no longer acceptable as an entry qualification for tertiary education.
Meanwhile, in the list of qualifications for admission to tertiary institutions published in the NAB websites, it stated that NCTE at its meeting of September 16, 2010, considered the criteria used by tertiary institutions for admission of SSSCE and WASSCE holders to their institutions.
It observed that some institutions based their admission criteria on the grading system of SSSCE and that the results of WASSCE were made to fit into those of the SSSCE, a practice the council considered as being unfair to many candidates.
To ensure fairness, avoid ambiguity in the admission process, and to cater for the interest of the majority of candidates, the statement said the council recommended that the SSSCE and the WASSCE results should be treated separately for admission purposes.
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