By Omar Bah
Five tertiary institutions have been ordered to close down operations effective November 1.
The order was given by the National Accreditation & Quality Assurance Authority, who said in a statement yesterday that the affected institutions failed to regularize their status.
The affected institutions are popular accounting training center Jollof Tutors, the Sobeya Skills Centre, A & A Financial Training Centre, MJ Hairdressing & Express Salon and Banjul Institute of Professional Studies.
The closures according to the NAQAA are indefinite.
“These institutions are not quality assured by NAQAA and are deemed to be operating illegally and have therefore been issued with closure orders effective 1stNovember 2017,” the statement said.
Meanwhile Alhaji Mamadi Kurang the CEO of Jollof Tutors has reacted to the decision of NAQAA with indignation. ”This order is out of context, illegal and is wrong for the country as it does not simply address the fundamental objective of the act of parliament that established the National Training Authority NTA which became the NAQAA,” he said. Kurang further stated that the issues at the heart of this is that employers, parents and others have complained that people are said to be trained and issued with certificates yet they are not proficient as their papers are claiming.
“We have engaged NAQAA to find a solution to this and their approach was to synchronise all syllabuse, but we told them that cannot be effective without a synchronised examination such as WAEC has for GABECE and WASCE. ”So we have put this to them many occasions. This is what is central to the problem and not this premature decision. But we are going challenge all bureaucratic dictatorships in a court of law,” Mr Kurang concluded. See page 6
