The Methodist Church Ghana has given all its active ministers holding doctorate degrees up to the end of September to submit copies of the certificates obtained for that qualification for verification.
Laypersons with doctorates working with the church, who wanted their doctorate degrees listed in the records of the church, have also been asked to comply with the directive.
If submitted, the church would forward those certificates to the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) to verify whether the institutions that granted the degrees are accredited and, if accredited, whether the bearer of the certificate met the requirements to be awarded the degree.
Directive
The Presiding Bishop of the church, Most Rev. Professor Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, who announced this on Thursday at Cape Coast at the ongoing 13th Expanded General Purposes Council (EGPC) of the church.
Accordingly directed all the bishops and Synod Secretaries of the church to take the directive to their members in the dioceses.
He explained that the directive was to prevent the church from being embarrassed in any form.
“This is not witch-hunting. This is making sure that we are on track. We don’t want to wait until we are embarrassed as a church.
“I am very serious about this because not only are we accepted as a nation, but this is a claim to academic qualification,” he explained.
GTEC crusade
GTEC has been in the news lately on a national campaign to prevent the use of unearned academic titles in Ghana and enforce the law against their abuse.
Many high-profile personalities in the country have since been named in this campaign to drop their supposed academic titles.
In the Monday, August 18, publication of the Daily Graphic, the Assemblies of God, Ghana, instructed all its ministers of the gospel to refrain from using honorary academic titles such as ‘Dr’ per GTEC regulations, which did not recognise such titles as equivalents to earned academic qualifications.
Most Rev. Professor Asamoah-Gyadu commended the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church, Rev Stephen Wengam, for that bold decision they took.
Expanded GPC
The EGPC serves as an extension of the General Purposes Council (GPC), the highest decision-making body of the church between conferences.
It has been instituted to enhance strategic planning, policy oversight and administrative efficiency in response to the growing needs of the church in a rapidly changing social and spiritual landscape.
This year’s EGPC coincides with the grand durbar celebration of the church’s 190th anniversary.
Source: Graphic
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