GTEC warns institutions about the rise of fake degrees in academia, urging them to implement stricter verification processes to safeguard the qualifications of professors.
Seated in a newly refurbished chair in Court Room 7 is Judge Abebrese Nokwafo. He scans through papers and calls for the next case.
Prosecutor surges forward and clears his throat: Your Honour, Professor Dr Blay-Krampah has been roaming in academic circles, shouting at rooftops and pontificating in serious national matters. He recently addressed an international conference and made some controversial claims that Ghana has outsourced integrity to buffoons.
This week, he was arrested for not having the appropriate professorial bona fides.
Your Honour, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) found that his degrees are honorary, and he has never written or defended a PhD thesis in his life. He is a fraud, a fake.
GTEC mandate
The face of Judge Nokwafo betrays a dreadful combo of shock and discomfiture: So what exactly is his crime? And who are the principal witnesses?
Prosecutor beckons to GTEC Boss: Your Honour, Prof Ahmed Jinapor, the Oga Bossu of GTEC, is here with all his directors and they are very angry.
Your Honour, GTEC is the Government body mandated by law to regulate the use of higher education nomenclature and titles, such as ‘emeritus’, ‘professor’, ‘doctor’, ‘university’, ‘college’ and others.
Enter Prof Ahmed Jinapor: Your Honour, as a country, we have all looked on for years while some pretenders and fraudsters literally rob our hardworking moral entrepreneurs of the honour they have worked for.
Your Honour, in our social, religious and even intellectual circles, we hear professor ‘This’ and Dr ‘That’ proffer expert advice on critical matters, sometimes on national security, public ethics and governance.
Your Honour, in Ghana’s education system, there is nothing like ‘honorary professor’ or ‘honorary doctor’.
You become a professor when you progress through academic ranks in an accredited place of higher learning.
Does the defendant have any legal representation, asks Judge Nokwafo?
Lawyer Benardo Blankson springs up and charges: Your Honour, my client is a respectable member of society who has individuated himself in many remarkable ways in academia, philanthropy and social engineering.
Your Honour, my client did not decorate himself with the titles; he is the recipient of two Doctor of Philosophy Degrees from reputable academic institutions–in recognition of his contribution to Ghana’s housing and micro finance sectors. He gives free seed capital to widows.
Professor by mistake
While these degrees are honorary (honoris causa), it must be forcefully established that my client is no stranger to the world of academia.
He studied and completed a full-time Doctor of Management degree at an Ivy League university in the USA and was awarded a PhD.
Your Honour, before responding to the call of God in his present vocation, my client taught in two universities in Ghana and published many peer-reviewed articles.
Despite his many contributions to society, he has never referred to himself or caused anybody or institution to address him as professor.
However, he is not unaware that people loosely call him professor, and sometimes ‘Prof Dr,’ probably as a mark of honour and in reverence for his good deeds.
Objection, your honour, counsel for the accused is misleading the court, moved the plaintiff.
How does a person’s good deeds in society suddenly earn him a professorship in academia?
We might as well award professorships to all Nobel Prize winners? Your Honour, the accused has authored a book in which he describes himself as a professor.
Is that a mistake likely to be made by a good member of the clergy who revels in self-aggrandisement and rates his own deeds as good?
Judge Nokwafo: Objection sustained. Meanwhile, we seem to have an application from a friend of the court (amicus curiae) to make an intervention. Please, identify yourself to the court and tell us why you are interested in this matter.
Punish lame Professors
Thank you very much, your Honour, for giving me an audience in your court. I am Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Bart-Plange (Rtd), Barrister and Solicitor at Law.
Your Honour, like many here, I found the recent campaign by GTEC to publicly shame higher achievers, threatening summary arrests and jail, very misplaced.
It is a clampdown on honour. I am a recipient of an honorary degree from the University of Ghana.
I received the honour alongside other well-meaning Ghanaians, including an advertising executive who had taught at the university bro-bono for 12 years. His students, including my son, value his scholarship above many professors.
He has authored 14 books. How many professors in Ghana have written books?
Your Honour, beyond policing people’s degrees, GTEC should seek to institute a punitive regime for their accredited professors and PhDs who have not produced any good research or invented anything to promote Ghana’s development.
Your Honour, may I remind GTEC that the computers and software they use in their offices were developed by autodidacts who dropped out of school and didn’t chase academic titles, as we do here.
Your Honour, Ghanaians see these titles as badges of validation, instead of a mandate to innovate and invent solutions to problems. GTEC is witch-hunting titles and honorary decorations, instead of the real witches behind our underdevelopment.
I ask, your Honour, how does a fake or honorary degree stop a genuine and accredited professor from inventing a mere light bulb?
Judge Nokwafo Closing: These are obviously contentious matters. We shall revisit the arguments at our next sitting. This case is adjourned sine die. Court rise!
Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin
Tissues Of The Issues
bigfrontiers@gmail.com
Ottawa, Canada
