Eduwatch commends Presidential Charter Amendment Bill, calls it correction of a “poorly conceived law”
The Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) has commended Parliament’s passage of the Education Regulatory Bodies (Amendment) Bill, 2026, calling it an overdue correction of a “poorly conceived law.”
The amendment effectively makes the acquisition of a Presidential Charter optional for private tertiary institutions while also scrapping the mandatory six-year deadline imposed under the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023).
Presenting the Bill for a second reading in Parliament on Friday, March 13, Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu argued that the requirements contained in the Original Act 1023 created severe financial and operational difficulties for private universities across the country.
Reacting to the bill’s passage in a social media post on Monday, March 16, the Executive Director of Eduwatch, Kofi Asare stated that the original provision under Act 1023 which compelled all private tertiary institutions to obtain a Presidential Charter and effectively transition into universities within six years, reflected a misunderstanding of how tertiary education systems work globally.
“Not every tertiary institution aims to or must become a university. No country compels this through law,” he wrote.
He cited examples of several specialised institutions including the Institute for Fiscal Studies in the UK, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the U.S, the University College Birmingham, and the University College of Estate Management, explaining that some of these institutions have been operating for more than a hundred years but have deliberately chosen not to become universities, choosing instead to focus on their specific specialty areas.
“These institutions are not universities not because they have lower standards, but because their focus is specialisation rather than broad academic research,” he noted. “The University College of Estate Management is over a century old, not because it has lower standards than universities, but because its focus is real estate and the built environment. Specialisation, not universal academic research, is its model.”
The Eduwatch director argued that Act 1023 mistakenly combined institutional type with institutional quality.
“Passing Act 1023 in 2020 to compel all tertiary institutions to become universities simply in the name of standards was therefore poorly conceived. You don’t need universities to achieve tertiary standards,” he said, adding that a strict enforcement of the law could have forced majority of private tertiary institutions across the country to close down.
He emphasized that academic standards in the country’s tertiary education can be addressed properly through strengthening institutional regulation, rather than “forcing every tertiary institution into the same mould.”
“The experience since 2020 also shows that tertiary institutions, both public and private, can still charter into universities with weak academic standards if regulation itself is weak,” he added. “Colleges, research institutes, professional schools, and universities all have their place within these institutional and programme standards.”
Kofi Asare charged the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) strong quality assurance frameworks as part of the bill’s implementation and added that enforcement alone is “not enough; the focus should be on supporting compliance while rigorously monitoring and enforcing standards.”
About The Author
