President John Mahama has granted a Presidential Charter to the Central University College, making it a fully-fledged university that can now award its own degrees.

The institute becomes the fourth private university to achieve this feat after Valley View University, Trinity Theological Seminar and Akrofi-Christaller Memorial Research Institute.

Central University was accredited as a private university college in 1998, but in 2009 was turned down by the National Accreditation Board when it applied for the Presidential Charter. Five years down the line, the President has approved an application submitted by the NAB to grant a Charter to the school.

It is required that every university college, after operating for a minimum of 10 years, sends an application to the NAB for a comprehensive assessment of the institution, its programmes, facilities and finances; and a report is presented to the Minister of Education for onward recommendation to the president.

When the application is approved by the president, he then grants that institution a Charter, which enables it to award its own degrees, diplomas and certificates.

Deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablarkwa who disclosed this to the media, said the NAB is very careful about which schools it recommend to the president for a charter, as it wants to protect the country’s tertiary education system’s dignity and integrity.

He therefore urged authorities of private universities to support the NAB to protect the accreditation system so as to ensure holders of certificates from Ghanaian universities get value when they enter the global job market.

“They should understand the strict guidelines from the NAB. It is for good reason that the NAB is so stringent in accreditation assessment,” he said.

“We don’t have to open the floodgates; we need to protect the accreditation system’s integrity,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Council of Independent Universities of Ghana has described the affiliation system in the country as a "grand exploitation" scheme, designed to rip-off nascent tertiary institutions and make private university education "expensive".

They argue that the affiliation system -- wherein a private university college understudies a public university until the private university college becomes mature and receives a Presidential Charter to run its own graduate programmes has become a major source of revenue for the mentor universities, as exorbitant fees are charged for it.