The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has picked up Raphael Nyarkotey Obu, one of the founders of the Nyarkotey University College of Holistic Medicine and Technology.
The arrest followed Ghana Tertiary Education Commission’s (GTEC) crackdown on unaccredited institutions and unearned PhDs in the country, which led to a discovery that Nyarkotey’s school was allegedly operating without being accredited by the commission.
GTEC, therefore, described certificates awarded by the institution as illegal because the institution’s activities were in clear violation of the regulations governing tertiary education in the country.
It will be recalled that Nyarkotey’s institution has been offering programmes such as Bachelor of Technology (BTech) in Naturopathy and Holistic Medicine, among other specialisations, in violation of Ghana’s tertiary education regulations.
A post on the institution’s official Facebook reads: “Nyarkotey University College of Holistic Medicine is the first College dedicated to the training of Naturopathic doctors and Naturopaths in Ghana”.
“The College is recognised by the World Naturopathic Federation (WNF), Canada. The College is also accredited”. It continued.
Meanwhile, the Director of Corporate Affairs of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Jerry Sam Sarfo, has indicated that the arrest of Nyarkotey formed part of GTEC’s efforts aimed at clamping down on institutions without valid accreditation.
This, he explained, fell under GTEC’s deliberate actions aimed at safeguarding the credibility of the country’s higher education system.
“Basically, this is something we are doing because there have been persistent calls for people to desist from running unaccredited programmes, but they keep doing it. So, there was the need for us to actually enforce,” CitiNews quoted him as saying.
The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has, in recent times, been cracking down on individuals with unearned PhDs as well as tracking institutions offering unaccredited programmes.
As part of this, GTEC recently sent letters to prominent individuals, including Sofo Rashid Tanko-Computer, Acting CEO of GIFEC and others who claimed to have PhDs to show proof of the same.
GTEC issued a stern warning to all those who claimed to be PhD holders and prefixed their names with “Doctor” without valid academic credentials to cease using the title “Doctor”.
Since the issuance of the directive, several individuals who used the title “Doctor” without the necessary academic credentials have since stopped.
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