By Mabinty M. Kamara
The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) is at loggerheads with yet another tertiary institution over accreditation.
The TEC is accusing the management of the Professional Global Training Institute (PGTI) - SL Limited of operating a learning institution without going through the mandatory accreditation process. After a statement early last week ordering the institute to shut down, the TEC leadership used the police to forcefully implement the order.
Politico learnt that a team of police officers descended on the school campus and ordered it shut down.
A spokesman for the Sierra Leone Police, Assistant Superintend Samuel Saio Conteh, confirmed to Politico that they acted on the request of the TEC. He said when they arrived at the scene they told the college authorities to shut it down right away until they regularize their status.
The TEC is mandated to regulate tertiary institutions in Sierra Leone. In the last two months, Politico has reported about at least three cases of tertiary institutions been ordered to shut down for either failing to regularize their status or for operating without its knowledge.
In a statement issued in the latest saga, the TEC requested for the closure of the PGTI and the suspension of the college’s scheduled graduation ceremony which should be held virtually at the end of this week.
The statement said that the PGTI is not accredited and therefore lacks the legal status to provide an educational service in the country.
“[The PGTI] is not an accredited university with the Commission and therefore [the TEC] considers it operations, including awards of certificates, diplomas and or degrees as illegal and unauthorized. And such awards guaranteed are therefore not recognized and proclaimed null and void and cannot be used for gainful employment in Sierra Leone,” the statement dated December 1, 2020, reads in part.
Dr. Allie Mackei-Conteh, the proprietor and head of the institute, told Politico that they have done everything necessary on their part as an institution to ensure that they gain accreditation. He blamed the TEC for forestalling the process, thereby causing them to loose students and huge sums of money each time they issue out press statement on their non-accreditation status.
According to Dr. Mackie-Conteh, the institute is registered as a company with the Corporate Affairs Commission, noting that he also applied for the registration of the college with the TEC in 2014. But he said because of the Ebola Epidemic that year, he had to travel back to the UK. Mackie-Conteh said when he returned to the country in 2016, the Commission had misplaced his application documents, forcing him to restart the process.
According to him, when the college started operation, it was located in a building at 8 Farmer Lane in Lumley in the west end of Freetown. It then moved to its current location at Murray Town in the same part of the city in 2016, when it resumed classes.
“Since 2016, they [TEC] never even acknowledged receiving our application form, until they saw us on television sometime in 2017 talking about education, and then they did a press release. By then we were almost two years in operation,” he recalled.
Dr. Mackie-Conteh said they had about 500 students at the time. He said the consequence of that 2017 press statement caused them to lose all their students.
“Everyone went [because of] that press release, because it stated that they are not going to be allowed to work, [and that] their parents should not pay for them because we are an illegal institution, and we are fake,” he said.
Dr. Mackie-Conteh said the college had to start all over again in 2018, with the hope that the change in the political landscape offered a favorable environment, having tried several times, unsuccessfully, to meet and discuss their issue with the Minster and deputy minister of education in the last administration. He said he is disappointed that the current Minister of Technical and Higher Education have treated him with the same attitude, noting that whenever he requested for a meeting, he is referred to the TEC.
“So I went to TEC, we tried to compromise, that we start all over again. But by then they already had a grudge against PGTI, because I took them to the Tertiary Education Committee in Parliament,” he said.
“I complained [over] the way they were treating me in 2017. So in 2018, when I went there, they told me I couldn’t call the college Professional Global University (PGU), that I have to change the name to the Professional Global Training Institute Business and Technology. So the clarification I had is, this company does not exist anymore because the name had been replaced as requested,” he said, adding: “So for them to do a press release that this company cannot issue a certificate, they are not fit for purpose, which is a gimmick, they are trying to confuse the public for their inefficiency, their ineptness, because this company [mentioned in the TEC statement] doesn’t exist anymore. They know this is the name we are trading on.”
Eventually, according to Dr. Mackie-Conteh, on the 15th of August 2018, the TEC wrote them a letter acknowledging receipt of their application and on the 20th of June, 2019, the TEC wrote them another letter notifying them of an assessment visit to their facility, with a list of documents to be presented to the assessment team.
The assessment team was supposed to look out for the existence of adequate infrastructure, policy on examination, teaching quality, enrolment criteria, and any other thing that is relevant for quality assurance.
The PGTI proprietor said in July 2019 they made a payment of Le20million into the Commission’s account at the Bank of Sierra Leone, in response to their request, noting that they also wrote to the Commission to notify them of the payment.
Dr. Mackie-Conteh said another problem emerged thereafter when he requested for the scheduled assessment to be brought closer due to an emergency travel he had to embark on out of the country. He explained that a UK-based partner of his had requested for a meeting regarding a potential funding for a US$150 million project to construct a facility that could host a teaching hospital, a cancer research and an artificial intelligence center in Sierra Leone. Dr. Mackie-Conteh said the Commission declined his request.
He said after the visit of the assessment team in his absence, the TEC didn’t send any report about their findings, until the college’s lawyers wrote the Commission in May/June 2020 requesting for a report. He said they subsequently received a report in July 2020, which indicated that the GPTI wasn’t fit for purpose and that they needed to rearrange their documentations.
“Their findings in the report were that we are not fit for purpose, our building did not match, But this is PGTI, a three story building with modern class rooms with 6 rooms. We are renovating the Rawdon Street campus. There are a lot of exchanges between them and our lawyers because they are not talking to me. They said I’m too stingy and I’m a trouble maker, that I have been making complaints to everybody. So there are a lot of animosity between us,” he said
Dr. Mackie-Conteh is concerned that he has already invested huge resources in preparation for the graduation ceremony scheduled for December 12, noting that this has a potential impact on huge investment plan between him and his international partners.
A spokesman for the TEC said that the Commission had no personal issue with the college and that all they wanted is for the right thing to be done.
Rowland Jones, Public Relations Officer of the TEC, when contacted by Politico refuted the claim by the GPTI boss that they were late to submit the report of their assessment. He said when they assessed GPTI, four other colleges were also under assessment, three of which met the requirement.
Jones said PGTI and another college were told to reapply after two years, by which time they expected they would have completed the necessary requirements.
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